UK: Religious Jew target of antisemitic campaign, police do nothing

The UK is considered a ‘safe’ place for Jews.  It’s not very antisemitic and its leaders constantly talk about the importance of fighting antisemitism.

And yet, there’s talk, and then there’s reality.

This is the story of a religious Jew, Isroel Shalom, who lives in Newham, an east-London neighborhood which used to be Jewish, but is now a mostly Muslim.

For the past few years, he has been the target of more than 300 vicious antisemitic attacks, all by young Muslim men.

There’s the ‘regular’ attacks.   Walking down the street he’d be spat on and confronted about Israel.  When he went to Newham College - he was spat on and shouted at in the corridors. When he dared complained, he was suspended for a week.  Nothing was done about his complaints, even though he was still being harassed and was now getting death threats.

In 1995 a Nigerian student was stabbed to death in Newham College, due to “tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim students” at the college.  One of the suspects in that murder was later arrested for a Jihadist terror plot.

Shalom’s home has been targeted for swastika attacks.  The police came to take pictures, but otherwise did nothing.

At one point Shalom got a letter full of Quran quotes.  Anybody he spoke to on the street would then get the same letter.  Police told him they couldn’t find any forensics.

But it didn’t stop there.  He’s been beaten and shot at.  He was once held at knife-point and told by his attackers that ‘they were getting bored now and that he’s going to die soon’.

When he hosted a Muslim friend, the friend himself became the target of attacks, landing him in the hospital. 

He was gang raped and forcibly drugged - leading to two heart attacks.  

And yet, police have never managed to arrest any suspect.  As he tells it: “I've stopped the police after an attack, with blood pouring from my face, to be told ‘what do you expect us to do about it?’.”  In fact, the police warned him that if he’ll fight back, he’ll be charged for it.

It had gotten to the point that he doesn’t even bother notifying the police.

When he confronted the mayor and asked why he doesn’t challenge the local antisemitism, the mayor told him he ‘had no time for it’.

Even when the local authorities condemn antisemitism, they do nothing to stop it.  Just like the police, they go through the motions, but don’t really do anything that would actually change the situation.

Though his story did make the press, especially when his home was targeted with graffiti, it didn’t seem to make a difference either.   (See here for one article, and here for an interview by the antisemitism watchdog group Yad B'Yad)


After years of suffering and persecution, he has now fled his home.  When he needs to go back - he walks around with a stab-proof vest, to a home that is a real fortress.

Yisroel Shalom says: “I just want put my TZITZIT on and not think, ‘you may kill me today’. Or my YAMULKE on my head. I refuse to cover up.”