A 22-year-old Israeli man was beaten to near unconsciousness by a group of masked attackers in Golders Green in the early hours of Monday morning after they overheard him speaking Hebrew on his phone — the latest in a wave of antisemitic attacks targeting one of London’s most prominent Jewish communities.
Shalev Ben-Yakar had stepped outside his flat on Golders Green Road, close to the King Solomon Hotel, at around 2am to take a call from friends in South America, not wanting to disturb his flatmates. After hearing him speaking Hebrew, a group of five or six men wearing tracksuits began chasing him. Shouting abuse at him in Arabic, they caught him, dragged him across the road, tore his clothes and stole one of his shoes. They asked him “Are you Jewish?” as they beat him, leaving him with bleeding wounds across his forehead, nose and cheeks and bruising across his back and face.
About three or four of the men formed a circle around him and repeatedly kicked him as he attempted to defend himself with his eyes closed. “They yelled at me in Arabic, they kept saying the word ‘whore’ in Arabic at me,” Ben-Yakar said. It felt like it went on for “about five minutes” before they finally ran away, leaving him barely conscious. A neighbour heard the commotion and called police, but the attackers had fled before officers arrived. The Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News both named Ben-Yakar as the victim.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism said the attack was “plain for all to see” evidence that “Jewish lives are under threat in their own communities,” adding: “We are in dire need of urgent action.” The CST, which provides security patrols in Jewish areas, said it was providing support to the victim and his family. A CST spokesman said: “This was a violent and appalling attack in the heart of Golders Green. At a time of heightened antisemitism, incidents like this underline the very real dangers facing Jewish communities.”
The assault is the latest in a sustained pattern of attacks against the Jewish community in north London stretching back months. In March, four Hatzola ambulances were set on fire on Highfield Road in Golders Green in an attack claimed by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, a front group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Three men and a teenager have since been charged with arson. On 29 April, two Jewish men aged 34 and 76 were stabbed on Golders Green Road in an attack declared a terrorist incident by the Metropolitan Police. The attacker, British-Somali national Essa Suleiman, 45, shouted “praise Allah” repeatedly as he lay on the ground after being Tasered by officers. HAYI also claimed responsibility for that attack. Suleiman is charged with attempted murder and will stand trial in March next year.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed Monday’s attack is being investigated as an antisemitic hate crime. No arrests have been made.
