This week: In the early hours of Monday, Shalev Ben Yakar, a 22-year-old Israeli, was beaten by a group of men on Golders Green Road after they heard him speaking Hebrew. They asked ‘Are you Jewish?’ as they kicked him to the ground. He said he thought he would die. Police are treating it as an antisemitic hate crime. It is the same neighbourhood where two Jewish men were stabbed outside their synagogue last month.
Two more men have been charged over the arson of a former East London synagogue, the ninth person charged in a campaign that has now seen more than thirty arrests. Experts warn that HAYI, the group claiming the European attacks, may not exist at all, and is likely a front for Iran, which appears to be paying local criminals cash to firebomb synagogues from London to Rotterdam.
In Washington, Jewish lawmakers from both parties describe an explosion of antisemitism, ‘we’ve crossed the Rubicon,’ after an antisemitic primary ad and a Capitol Hill tirade blaming ‘you Jews.’
And in Vienna, Israel’s Noam Bettan finished second at Eurovision, winning the public vote in six countries despite boycotts and boos.