Anti-Semitic Attacks an Everyday Fact For London’s Orthodox Jews

Daily acts of physical and verbal abuse against members of London’s Orthodox Jewish community have become commonplace, according to a new month-long study.

Stamford Hill Shomrim, a neighbourhood-watch scheme in north London, has released data showing there’s at least one anti-Semitic attack on identifiable Jewish people every day in the capital.

Victims range from young children to mothers with their babies and the incidents recorded in one 28-day period included three assaults, two threats to kill, eight threats of violence, 18 cases of verbal abuse, and one incident of criminal damage.

A summary of the report includes these specific attacks:

• An eight-year-old boy in Haringey (N15) who was assaulted near his home by a male who told him he was a “stupid Jew”.
• A 28-year-old mother boarded a bus with her two children, aged six months and four years old, when a suspect deliberately blocked her path, telling her “I’m not going to move for you, you Jewish people are selfish, you Jewish people are bad”.
• Three Jewish women who were chased through Hackney (N16) by perpetrators shouting “the Jewish people are rich, horrible Jewish people, give us your money”.
• An 11-year-old boy in Hackney who was told he would be beaten up if he didn’t remove his skullcap.
• A 55-year-old Jewish woman in Hackney was asked if she covered her hair because Hitler had shaved it off, before the perpetrator made a Nazi salute.
• A 38-year-old man who had his religious hat (shtreimel) thrown on the ground as he left a synagogue in Stamford Hill.

According to Shomrim’s statistics, the average age of the victims was 29.5. The study notes that Orthodox men wear more distinctive clothing than women, making them “more likely to become victims as they are easily identifiable as Jews”.

Shomrim said the results of the study may just be the “tip of the iceberg”. It does not regularly record anti-Semitic incidents in such detail due to lack of funding, meaning that the vast majority of incidents against ultra-Orthodox Jews are not recorded, especially when “victims do not wish to contact local police directly”.

Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE, President of Stamford Hill Shomrim, said: “It has long been said that antisemitism is underreported in the Charedi Jewish Community, which is the most visible segment of the Jewish Community, but these figures are nevertheless shocking, even more so since this is only the tip of the iceberg.

“The Home Office must take urgent action to work directly with Stamford Hill Shomrim concerning the Charedi Jewish Community, a community with a distinct ethos, sensitivities and structures, to enhance and improve the reporting of hate crimes.”

Anti-Semitic attacks as recorded by the Stamford Hill Shomrim reports are part of a wider national trend, as reported by Breitbart Jerusalem.

Overall, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the UK rose by 11 per cent in the first six months of this year with London reporting three-quarters of all recorded attacks.

The Community Security Trust (CST) said 577 incidents targeting Jews were reported to the charity from January to June. This was up from 473 in the same period last year, a trend the charity’s chief executive, David Delew, said was “worrying”.

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