A Jewish man in his 50s was stabbed on Friday morning in the Hackney section of London in an apparent anti-Semitic attack.
The victim was reportedly standing outside of a bank when the attacker stabbed several times. The assailant was then tackled by several bystanders and held until police arrived.
Several outlets identified the victim as Rabbi Alter Yaakov Schlesinger of the Stamford Hill section of London, known as a heavily Orthodox Jewish area.
The Community Security Trust, which provides security in the Jewish community in Britain, said online that the victim is in “stable condition. … We are in full contact with police and there is no current assessment that this was, or was not, anti-Semitic.”
On Twitter, the Hackney Police said that the attacker is a man in his 40s and has been “arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. … We are not treating this as terror-related.”
The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, said in a statement “Our thoughts are with the victim and we pray for his speedy recovery. … We hope justice will be swiftly served.” It went on to thank the bystanders “who restrained the attacker, incapacitating him until police arrived.”
A report from the Community Security Trust found that there had been a record 1,805 anti-Semitic incidents across Britain in 2019—the highest-ever annual total—and the “fourth consecutive year in which CST recorded a new annual high.”
That total, the report went on to say, did not include “a further 566 potential incidents were received by CST but not included in the total as they showed insufficient evidence of anti-Semitic targeting, content or motivation.”
