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Five weeks ago, Ben Grossnass, a longtime volunteer with Shomrim North West London community patrol, was woken by a phone call in the early hours. By the time he arrived at the scene, four Jewish volunteer ambulances had been torched.

On Wednesday this week, the phone rang again at 11.20am. A panicked caller reported a man running along Golders Green Road and Highfield Avenue with a knife, chasing people and stabbing them. Within a minute, a Shomrim volunteer was on the scene. He used his car to block the attacker, slowing him down before officers arrived and, alongside the police, apprehended him.

“Whenever the call comes through, even if I’m sleeping at 5am in the morning, I will jump up and be there for whoever is required,” Grossnass said.

For Shomrim volunteers, this is routine. Set up in 2009, the organisation runs a 24-hour community emergency hotline and rapid response service. Dressed in high-visibility yellow vests marked “Shomrim” and “Emergency Response Unit”, volunteers are a visible presence on the streets.

They are embedded in the areas they serve, often arriving at incidents before the police. They carry out regular patrols, in one of five patrol vehicles the organisation owns. The group works closely with officers, acting as a bridge between the community and law enforcement, and is part of a wider network across the UK.

Shomrim deals with a wide range of incidents, including missing persons, burglaries, antisemitic attacks and general distress or emergency situations. It is open to anyone in the area, not just the Jewish community, and also provides security training, which it hopes to expand.

But the vital service is being overwhelmed. Speaking before his roundtable meeting with prime minister Keir Starmer, Grossnass, who lives in Golders Green, explained there has been a 500-fold increase in antisemitic incidence since 7 October 2023, after the Hamas attacks in Israel.

“Five weeks ago people woke up at 1.30 in the morning to huge explosions. And ever since then, there’s been arson attack after arson attack in our local synagogues,” Grossnass said.

“And then a man running around trying to kill anyone visibly Jewish on our main street, Golders Green Road.”

“We are very stretched,” he added, “We have not received government funding financially, and it’s something which we would very much welcome.”

That lack of funding was highlighted by political leaders, including Kemi Badenoch, who was at Golders Green on the day of the attack. She paid tribute to Shomrim and called for it to get government funding. “We need to provide a lot more support to the Jewish community. This is a national emergency,” she said.

Grossnass has volunteered with Shomrim for 15 years. His day job – “when I get a minute,” he said – is in furniture sales. He remains committed to the work he does with Shomrim.

“For me, when someone’s in distress, I just want to drop everything and be there for them,” Grossnass said. “It’s about the safety of our local community, and anyone here really in Great Britain, whenever we’re called.”

Though the attacks have felt relentless over the past two years, Steven Bak, also of Shomrim North West London, said they remained unbowed. “And we are an organisation which would always run towards danger to protect the community. We’re here always for the community, and nothing will ever stop us. No fear, no hate.”

Both Grossnass and Bak have been part of the visible Shomrim presence in Golders Green since the attack.

Starmer held a roundtable with Shomrim, and first responders Hatzola. He was joined by home secretary Shabana Mahmood and Sarah Sackman, MP for Finchley and Golders Green, as well Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.

Grossnass hoped to raise the issues of proscribing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which Starmer has promised to do. He also called for antisemitism to be tackled during protests on university campuses.

“It’s not about more policing, it’s about stamping out where it’s all coming from,” Grossnass said.

He added that many in the Jewish community will at some point have felt alone in the past two years. While solidarity in the form of donations is welcome, Grossnass called for ordinary people to speak up.

“Don’t stay quiet,” he said. He pointed to an antisemitic attack last week in Slough against an Orthodox Jewish man. Bystanders who witnessed the hate crime intervened. “So if you see something and you can stand up and be there for those who are being attacked, then that’s super important.”