Dozens of demonstrators hurled anti-Semitic abuse at Jews in London over the weekend, accusing them of “taking over the world” and mocking their “long noses.”
Chaim Hochhauser, a representative of the Shomrim community protection organization, told The Jewish Chronicle, a local Jewish newspaper, that some 20-30 men verbally assaulted members of the ultra-Orthodox community in London’s Stamford Hill neighborhood on Saturday.
The anti-Semitic “preaching” as he called it, did not lead to any arrests, although police were at the scene.
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“It was extremely racist,” Hochhauser told the Chronicle. “We have taken a number of phone calls about it. People are scared – scared that a pogrom could happen to them. There were a lot of Jewish people there. It was Shabbos afternoon so they were coming out of [synagogue].
“Even the non-Jewish people were shocked,” he continued. “This was the first time something like this has happened. The community is shocked. It is extremely shocking – especially for it to happen on Shabbos.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqA1Wd7_HcE
The demonstrators, who claimed to be descendants of the biblical Israelites, also called members of the local Jewish community goyim, a derogatory term for non-Jews.
Borough Mayor Philip Glanville said that he was “disgusted by these allegations” and that local municipal officials were “looking to assist where they can, including surveying local CCTV.”
According to the Community Security Trust, Britain’s primary anti-Semitism watchdog, the first half of 2019 saw a precipitous rise in incidents targeting members of the UK Jewish community.
The group counted a record high total of 892 anti-Semitic incidents during that period. It further said it was the highest number of incidents it had ever recorded in the January-to-June period of any year and is a 10 percent increase from the 810 incidents recorded during the same period in 2018 — itself a record high for a six-month period. There was a record annual total of 1,688 anti-Semitic incidents in the UK in 2018.
Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Britain’s opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism in the Labour party, outside the British Houses of Parliament in central London on March 26, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Tolga AKMEN)
February and March saw the highest levels of anti-Semitism so far this year, which the CST attributed to the prominence of issues related to the British Labour party’s anti-Semitism scandal during those months. In February, a number of Jewish Labour MPs quit the party over claims of anti-Semitism within its ranks.
This summer, government anti-Semitism adviser MP John Mann stated that the “Jewish community is the canary in the coal mine for humanity.”
“When it comes to fighting anti-Semitism, it’s not enough for us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish community, when the anti-Semites are throwing the stones of hatred, of bitterness, of bile,” he said. “We have to stand in front of [Jews] in this fight. This must not be only the responsibility of the Jewish community.”
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