‘I’m Going to Chop Your Head off’: Jewish Man Threatened with Knife in London

The Metropolitan Police Service has arrested a 34-year-old man after he allegedly drew a knife and threatened to behead a Jewish man in east London.

Tower Hamlets police issued a statement Monday afternoon saying: “At around 10am on 1 July a Jewish man was threatened by another man in Dunbridge St, E1. The suspect was carrying a knife. Police responded and arrested a 34-year-old man nearby for a racially aggravated public order offence. A knife was recovered from the suspect who remains in custody.”

The victim, an Orthodox Jewish man in his 40s, was walking down the Whitechapel street on his way to work when he was reportedly threatened and called a “f***ing Jew” by a man who then allegedly pulled a knife and chased him down the road, whilst shouting antisemitic abuse.

Barnet Councillor Nizza Fluss told London’s Evening Standard: “A man started running behind him saying ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to chop your head off.’

“He [the victim] saw that he took a knife out and he started running away, he was just running for his life.”

The victim is said to be “very traumatised” and has not been able to return to work.

Jewish charity the Community Security Trust (CST) released its antisemitic incidents report in February, revealing that the UK had had a “record high” number of antisemitic incidents in 2018, totalling 1,652. Around three-quarters of those were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, which have the two largest Jewish communities in the UK. Greater London had seen a 21 per cent rise in incidents on the year before.

London has also been facing rising crime generally, with there being an average of 40 knife crimes every day, while the country has seen knife crime hit a nine-year high.