Wave of Harassment towards London Orthodox Jews Continues

There have been 211 antisemitic hate crimes in London so far in 2023, according to Metropolitan Police Service.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Orthodox Jews in the Stamford Hill section of London continue to face an onslaught of antisemitic harassment, according to a slew of reports by a neighborhood watch group.

Last week, Shomrim Stamford Hill reported, a “racist gang” of youths kicked open the door of a Jewish family’s home, the second time they have done so since April. Days earlier, a Black male riding public transport, seemingly of West Indian origin, verbally abused a Jewish passenger, calling Jews the “devil” and accusing them of being responsible for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The man, who alluded to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his tirade, welcomed being recorded by his victim, but he suddenly began striking his phone with a large pole and, demanding that it stop, reached for other objects that could be used as a weapon.

On May 24, a Jewish man walking past the Rose Cafe in Tottenham was waylaid by an elderly woman sitting at a table in the front of the restaurant. She accused the Orthodox Jewish community of taking over Muswell Hill and Stamford Hill and shouted that they aren’t welcome in either community.

“This is my country. We’re not Israel. You can be Zionist anywhere in the whole wide world,” the perpetrator allegedly said. “All I’m saying is: is it big enough for you to make it into ‘little Israel?’…you are not welcome. Go back to Muswell Hill. How many places in London do you want to take over…I am more intelligent than you could ever believe, so don’t think you can take me on because you can’t!”

Since April, Shomrim has reported on a stranger’s approaching a Jewish woman and shouting “One day I will kill all you Jews,” the defacement of a Jewish family’s door and theft of their mezuzah, and an incident in which a Jewish mother and her infant were verbally abused and spit on, leaving the mother “traumatized and seeking support.”

In two other incidents that occurred in early May, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) arrested a man for standing on the side of Ravensdale Road and shouting antisemitic epithets at Jewish community members passing through the area, and on Monday officers apprehended a woman who was “unleashing a torrent of racist slurs” on patrons of a Park Avenue Hotel, which is Jewish-owned.

There have been 211 antisemitic hate crimes in London so far in 2023, according to data reported by MPS. Members of the city’s Orthodox Jewish community, one of the largest in Europe, were victims in a substantial portion of the 3,280 antisemitic hate crimes that MPS has recorded since 2018. 853 were tallied in 2021 alone.

In March, someone knocked a 16 year old Jewish boy’s hat off his head “in a completely unprovoked incident” near Stoke Newington Railway Station, and a tall man wearing an orange hoodie intentionally bumped into an Orthodox man while passing him on the street. Another man, whom MPS has arrested and charged with committing a hate crime, shouted “Heil Hitler, I love Hitler” at Jewish worshipers leaving synagogue on Purim. He was, Shomrim said, armed with a knife.