‘You stupid Jews think you own the world,’ assailant tell Jewish boy
By JEREMY SHARONUltra-Orthodox Jews stand in a street in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in the UK(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A teenage Jewish boy was punched and antisemitic remarks were shouted at him on a public bus in London on Monday.The 13-year-old boy was on a bus to the north London neighborhood of Stamford Hill, which has a large, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, the Shomrim civilian patrol organization reported.The boy was punched in the stomach by a male who shouted at him, “You stupid Jews think you own the world” and “You f***ing Jews.”The Board of Deputies of British Jews described the incident as an “unprovoked racist assault” and as “sickening.” “The vile individual who perpetrated this attack must be arrested and subjected to the full force of the law,” a spokesman said.The Evening Standard newspaper said London’s Metropolitan Police had confirmed the attack.Last week, antisemitic graffiti implying that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were a Jewish conspiracy was spray-painted on a London synagogue. The Metropolitan Police said it was investigating the graffiti as “a racially motivated hate crime.”Separately, the Board of Deputies condemned what it described as antisemitic conspiracy theories tweeted by Port Vale soccer player Tom Pope.Pope, whose team plays in a lower league, tweeted on Sunday in response to a request for a “prediction” on a third world war: “We invade Iran, then Cuba, then North Korea, then the Rothchilds are crowned champions of every bank on the planet.”Pope later deleted the tweet, but not before he defended it strongly against accusations of racism, tweeting, “Racist?? They own the bloody banks! There’s no racial malice whatsoever and anyone would say the bloody same!”Pope’s comments “show that he subscribes to the notorious antisemitic conspiracy theory that the Rothschild family exert[s] overwhelming control over global finances,” Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl Pope said in a tweet.
She urged the UK Football Association and the Port Vale soccer club “to send a clear message that the promotion of antisemitism will not be tolerated at any level of the game.”The UK had a record-high number of antisemitic incidents in 2018, the latest year that records are available for, which followed previous record highs in 2017 and 2016. However, physical assaults in 2018 were down 17% from 2017, with 123 such attacks against British Jews in 2018, down from 149.
