The stabbing of two Jewish people in Golders Greens is not just an attack on the community but on Britons and the “standards we live by”, a Jewish leader says.
Jonathan Goldstein, former Jewish Leadership Council chair, told Sky News that attacks on the Jewish community have “escalated quite considerably” in recent months.
He said:
“It’s important to see this in the context of the last two or three months where the attacks on the Jewish community have escalated quite considerably.
“And in fact, the Jewish community has been talking about this since the 7th of October with the marches around London and with the repeated antisemitic incidents, which have just escalated so strongly.
“But clearly, the seriousness over the last six weeks has gone up a significant amount. And, and the community needs action.
“I think what the British people need to understand is that this is not just an attack on the Jewish community, this is attack on British people, it’s attack on the standards and by which we live in this country.”
Goldstein added that radicalism had been allowed to spread within some parts of British society.
“It’s time that our own communities look within themselves and said, we have an issue here, we have a problem, and we need to sort it out”, he said.
Victims’ commissioner urges public ‘not to be bystanders to this hate’
Everyone has a responsibility to challenge antisemitism in all forms, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales has said, as she urged the public “not to be bystanders to this hate”.
Responding to the stabbings, Claire Waxman said: “This is yet another attack in a string of disturbing incidents targeting the Jewish community in this country. As a member of the community, I know how relentless and deeply frightening this feels.
“I urge everyone to stand in solidarity with the British Jewish community – not to be bystanders to this hate or to allow it to become normalised and accepted.
“We all have a responsibility to challenge antisemitism and hatred in all its forms, whether online, on our streets, in workplaces, in schools or on university campuses.”
Waxman said it was vital for police and the wider criminal justice system to give antisemitic attacks “the priority and urgency they demand”.
Victims aged 76 and 34 – with man in 40s arrested, police confirm
The head of counter-terrorism policing has said the two Jewish men stabbed in the attack are aged 76 and 34.
AC Laurence Taylor added a 45-year-old man has been arrested.
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