Anti-Semites attacked a synagogue in London in the early hours of Sunday morning, threatening to kill the Jewish worshipers.
At least 20 youths attacked a local synagogue at approximately 1 a.m. on Sunday morning in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of north London, yelling “We will kill you” as they vandalized property and assaulted the worshipers, according to Israel Hatzolah, the largest volunteer Emergency Medical Services organization in Israel.
One person was injured, and police have arrested eight suspects. Police are treating the incident as anti-Semitic, “due to remarks made by one of the group,” BBC reports.
A Jewish local who happened to be passing by rushed inside and grabbed one of the suspects, intending to bring him to police, but he was quickly overpowered by the other assailants. He suffered blows to the face and lost a tooth, the Jerusalem Post reports.
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Detectives said the attackers, who were drunk, had just left a party and were trying to enter the synagogue. They were arrested for public order offences and assault. “However, there is nothing to suggest that it was a planned or targeted attack,” a police spokesman said.
Police increased patrols in the Stamford Hill area to provide reassurance to the community, the spokesman added, according to BBC.
British parliamentarians recently expressed shock and concern after a report showing a sharp rise in anti-Semitism in the UK was released in February.
According to the Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity dedicated to the security of the UK’s 260,000 Jews, the number of anti-Semitic incidents doubled in 2014 to 1,168. This figure was confirmed by police reports to be generally accurate, the report noted.
British Jewry remains skeptical of its future there. A survey from January shows that a quarter of respondents had considered aliyah (immigration to Israel) in the past two years and more than half believe that Jews have no future in Europe.
By: Aryeh Savir
Staff Writer, United with Israel
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