Illustration
Photo: Visual/Photos
London woman recalls violent anti-Semitic attack
Linda Cohen was serving drinks in her north London cafe one Sunday evening when two men stormed in, held a knife to her stomach and screamed that they would kill her for being a "stinking, dirty Jew"
Linda Cohen was serving drinks in her north London cafe one Sunday evening when two men stormed in, held a knife to her stomach and screamed that they would kill her for being a "stinking, dirty Jew".
Cohen, who was attacked in August, was speaking to Reuters as a group of MPs released a report warning that anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise in Britain.
"These two young men arrived outside the cafe and asked a customer if it was a Kosher restaurant -- when she said 'yes' they started to insult us," she said. "'Shut up you stinking Jew, what you looking at' they yelled. 'I'm going to kill you.'"
One of the men then starting throwing chairs around the cafe before the other grabbed Cohen and held a knife to her stomach while screaming that he wanted to kill her and all Jews around the world.
The two men, who were in their early twenties, finally left after Cohen's colleague managed to call the police.
The 34-year-old who moved to Britain from Israel 11 years ago said she had heard that anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise but had not expected to be targeted in Britain.
"It was the first time anything like this had happened to me," she said. "I'm worried that I will see them any minute and it's not as if I have police sat outside my cafe."
Cohen said Britons needed to be made aware of the problem with a public debate and children taught at school about anti-Semitism.
The report released on Thursday by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism said the police needed to record all anti-Semitic attacks as this is not currently the case.
It also called on the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate why fewer than one in 10 reported incidents resulted in legal action.
The Community Security Trust (CST), which advises Britain's 290,000-strong Jewish community on safety issues, said there had been 92 anti-Semitic accidents in Britain in July, coinciding with the conflict between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon.
