Tuesday, October 11, 2016

UK: 'Visible' Jews frequently harassed




Via Hackney Gazette:
Children as young as eight are being targeted in anti-Semitic hate crimes according to a study released today, which reveals the everyday abuse suffered by Stamford Hill’s Jewish community.

The figures were compiled by the Charedi community’s volunteer neighbourhood watch group Shomrim – which patrols Stamford Hill – in the month leading up to this week’s National Hate Crime Awareness Week. All of the 38 victims who live in Stamford Hill area were “visibly Jewish”, according to Shomrim, and some even received death threats.

One eight-year-old boy is reported to have fled home crying after being assaulted near his home in Haringey by a man who called him a “stupid Jew”.

Another victim, a 55-year-old woman, was allegedly asked “if she covered her hair on her head because Hitler had shaved it off”, before the perpetrator made a Nazi salute.

She was in Stamford Hill and had been in the middle of saying a prayer called “Tashlich”, which is spoken near a stream of water to mark the Jewish New Year.

Another 11-year-old boy was surrounded in Clapton and told that if he didn’t remove his skull cap he would be beaten up if he didn’t comply – reported two weeks ago by the Gazette.

In a further incident, three “terrified” women were allegedly chased in Stamford Hill by perpetrators shouting: “The Jewish people are rich. Horrible Jewish people, give us your money.”

Official Met figures show on average 10 anti-Semitic hate crimes a month are reported to Hackney and Haringey police – much lower than the figures recorded by Shomrim.

Shomrim president Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE said the “shocking” figures were “just the tip of the iceberg”, and urged the Home Office to work with Shomrim to improve the reporting of hate crime.

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