A Jewish man’s car was attacked outside a synagogue by an ax-wielding man in London, just hours after a Jewish elementary school nearby was vandalized with sickening anti-Semitic graffiti.
The two incidents took place Tuesday in the London neighborhood of Stamford Hill, which is home to a large Orthodox Jewish community.
Graffiti reading “f*** the Jews” was found Tuesday morning scrawled in black marker pen at Simon Marks primary school, according to the Evening Standard.
The offensive message was quickly cleaned off before children began arriving for the start of the school day, but a spokesperson for the Shomrim neighborhood watch patrol said it was “disturbing” nonetheless.
“It’s disturbing,” Shomrim committee supervisor Chaim Hochhauser told the Standard. “They were nasty words.
“It’s being investigated at the moment – we’re checking out CCTV but no one has been caught yet.”
Hours later, at a synagogue situated just a few minutes away, an unidentified man smashed the windows of a car parked outside the Beth Hamedrash Skver Synagogue.
“He parked up his car and walked into the synagogue and he was there for quite a while,” Hochhauser said of the car’s owner.
“He was notified by some witnesses that a guy with an axe had smashed up his windows.”
The attacker did not try to steal anything from the car, but simply attacked it viciously, leading to suspicions the incident was an anti-Semitic hate crime as well.
“He was walking up and down the road with an axe,” Hochhauser said, describing the scene – which was caught on camera by a nearby Shomrim patrol car. He urged residents to “keep an eye open and look out. If you see anything, report it straightaway.”
Police are currently studying the footage.
The incidents come as British Jews scored a victory against attempts by neo-Nazis to hold a provocative rally in the heart of London’s Jewish community.
Far-right activists were told by police earlier Tuesday that their planned “de-Jewification” rally this Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, could not take place in Golders Green as previously planned. Instead, it will be relocated to a central London location far from the Jewish community, and would be restricted to one hour only, after which it will be dispersed.
Arutz Sheva has learned that a key factor in that decision was the predicted number of counter-demonstrators – primarily from the local Jewish community but also from other locals and anti-fascist campaigners – which police said would have been impossible to control together with the provocative rally.
Anti-hate groups and Jewish organizations have hailed the developments as a victory.
