A mob of so-called pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed a Synagogue in London amid an anti-Israel demonstration on Armistice Day on Saturday as Jewish families reportedly sought police escorts to help them flee to safety.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday showed the synagogue on Abbey Road in St John’s Wood, north-west London beset by groups of men waving Palestinian flags, green smoke flairs and shouting as cars fled from the Jewish place of worship.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism said on social media that it had received “multiple reports” of Jewish families being “targeted” by anti-Israel activists during Saturday’s demonstration.
“Naturally, the Jewish community is terrified. We are aware of Jewish families being targeted on their way out of synagogue and have received multiple reports of police having to escort congregants away in groups for their own safety,” a spokesman for the charity said.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism went on to say: “The placards today bore slogans and imagery that would not have looked out of place in Nazi Germany.”
A spokesman for Jewish security charity Community Security Trust told The Telegraph: “Yet again a protest – attended by many people claiming to be anti-racist – contained many examples of Jew-haters with their homemade placards, obsessing about Nazism, the Holocaust; and with the old accusations of Jews or Zionist controlling politicians and the media.”
“We still have Holocaust survivors living here in London. How much longer will they, and many others in our Jewish community, have to stand by in our own city with this anti-Semitism on display week in, week out?”
The Metropolitan Police have said that they are investigating the incident at the synagogue and are searching for the cars of the people involved.
The protest on Saturday, which many objected to for being held on the same day that Britain honours its war heroes, featured many racist and antisemitic signs including comparing the conflict in the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust of Jews during World War II.
Others compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler as well as the Jewish state being represented as a snake coiled around the world, evoking a common antisemitic trope of Jewish control.
Meanwhile, footage posted by Rebel Media showed a protester saying of Israel: “Hitler knew how to deal with these people”.
Commenting on the protest, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Almost 80 years after the end of the Second World War it is shocking to hear nakedly anti-Semitic chants on the streets of London today.
“There are people who plainly want to ignore the Hamas massacre of October 7. They want to wipe Israel off the map. That is what they were chanting for today. They must not and will not succeed.
“I thank the police for all their efforts to keep people safe – but we must all do more, because an ancient hatred is rising again in Europe. It must be stamped out.”
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