‘He punched me with a razor blade between his fingers’: What it’s like to be British, Jewish and hated

Eli was chatting with some friends outside his college, dressed in his Jewish skullcap and prayer shawl as usual, when a young man came by on foot. “Nick their caps,” he shouted to his mate, before directing a derogatory comment about Jews to Eli’s group. Then came the attack.

“He punched me and had a razorblade between his fingers,” says the 18-year-old from Gateshead. “It was an inch from my eye and I was bleeding a lot from my face.” The wound was stitched up in hospital. The aggressor, who had also slashed one of Eli’s friends in the back, got away.

The assault must have shaken him up a fair bit? “You could say that,” agrees Eli laconically. “In Gateshead people shout stuff at you quite often. I’m used to it.”

The incident, which happened in April, is being treated as a hate crime by Northumbria Police, who’ve been trying to track down the assailant.

Eli, who did not want his real name published, is far from alone. Anti-Semitism is referred to as the oldest hatred, one that’s reared its ugly head time and again throughout the Jewish people’s history. Here, in liberal, progressive, multicultural Britain, many once felt they were safe.

But today, growing numbers are afraid for their future. Last week, the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects British Jews from anti-Semitism, said it had recorded 727 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK in the first six months of 2018, the second-highest total it has ever recorded in the first half of any year. The highest total came last year, when 786 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded between January and June, and a record annual total of 1,414 anti-Semitic incidents was logged.