Jewish students assaulted in London subway station

The British police are investigating the assault as a hate crime.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A group of Jewish high school boys was attacked in a London Underground subway station Monday in what police are investigating as a hate crime.

Several 11- and 12-year-old pupils of the Hasmonean High School were in the Belsize Park Station when a group of at least four youths set upon them.

A mother of one victim told the Jewish News that the assailants were known to her son and his friends as a group that has “taunted them with antisemitic verbal abuse” many times in the past.

On Monday, they went from verbal to physical assault.

“They ran ahead of my son and kicked one of his friends to the ground. They were trying to push another kid onto the tracks,” she said. “They got him as far the yellow line.”

“I’m not sure how he managed to get away,” she continued. “My son ran a few steps up to try and get help. They ran after him, he was elbowed in the cheek and he hit his head against the wall. They dislodged a tooth and shouted ‘Get out of the city, Jew!’”

The mother lamented, “My son is very shaken. He couldn’t sleep last night. He said ‘It’s not fair. Why do they do this to us?’ I feel that encapsulates what antisemitism feels like. Why? What have we done?”

The Community Security Trust (CST), which provides security advice and training to the British Jewish community, said in a post on X that the attack was “a threatening and distressing incident for those involved and a further example of the unacceptable levels of antisemitism in our country.”

The boys had been punched and kicked, CST added to local media, with clearly antisemitic rhetoric being directed at the victims.

Although no one was badly injured, the British Transport Police, who came to the station after receiving a report of children being attacked, are taking the incident seriously.

“Detectives are appealing for witnesses after an assault on a group of Jewish schoolchildren,” they said in a statement. “The incident is being treated as a hate crime. Enquiries are ongoing to identify the offenders, who are believed to be a group of children from another school.”

While school officials publicly downplayed the incident, saying online reports had been “exaggerated,” and that the students are “absolutely fine now,” GB News reported that a note sent to parents said that several officers will visit the school in the next few days, both to gather more possible testimony and “reassure our students that their safety is a top priority.”

“This direct engagement will hopefully alleviate some of the anxiety and fear resulting from this incident,” the note added.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan condemned the crime, saying, “Antisemitism has no place on the streets of London.”

Antisemitic incidents in England, and especially in the capital, have skyrocketed by hundreds of percentage points since the Israel-Hamas war began following the terror organization’s surprise invasion of Gazan envelope communities on October 7 in which they and other terrorists massacred 1,200 people and took 252 hostage.

British JewsCSTEuropean antisemitismHate crimeLondonLondon Underground