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Holocaust Survivor and Rabbi Son Physically Assaulted on London Bus

A Holocaust survivor has been left traumatised after she and her son, a Rabbi, were punched and verbally abused by a woman in an unprovoked attack on a bus.

The assailant struck the elderly survivor in the head and her son whilst screaming: “I hate you Jews, it’s not your place, you took our money.”

She also threw the Rabbi’s hat to the floor in the assault, which took place at 14:48 on Tuesday, 9th February on a 76 London bus travelling from Stoke Newington to Stamford Hill.

Passengers pleaded with the bus driver to stop, as the incident took place as they were driving by a police station, but he allegedly refused.

The attack on the Holocaust survivor, aged 80, and her son who is a Rabbi at Kehal Chasidim Synagogue in Golders Green, comes in the same week that a disabled Jewish man was verbally abused on another bus with the driver failing to act then too.

Police are currently investigating the incident, which was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD4563 9/2/21.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is yet another unprovoked act of violence against members of the Jewish community going about their day. Our research has shown that almost half of British Jews conceal visible signs of their Judaism in public due to antisemitism, and fear of attacks such as this clearly feed into this sentiment. TfL must explain why the bus driver took no action, allowing the abuse to go on despite the violence and the protests of other passengers, and the assailant must quickly be identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.