Axe-wielding man threatens British Jews

[Nevski]

A man carrying an axe made anti-Semitic threats to Jews near Manchester on Rosh Hashanah.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/218899

A man carrying an axe made anti-Semitic threats to a group of Jews in a town near Manchester, England, on Rosh Hashanah, JTA reported Tuesday.

According to the report, the man was inside a vehicle close to a synagogue in the town of Prestwich when he made the threats on October 3. Police were called to the scene, and later the same day arrested a 45-year-old man suspected of possessing a weapon and committing a racially motivated public order crime. The man was released on bail until October 31, according to the JTA report.

"This was unfortunately a very ugly incident and we are glad that the police response has been so speedy and correct," a spokesman for the Jewish group Community Security Trust was quoted as having said by The Manchester Evening News. Local police said the incident was still under investigation.

Prestwich is home to a thriving Jewish community served by several kosher supermarkets and butchers, as well as clothing shops catering to the modesty standards of observant women. In September of 2015, a 17-year-old boy was beaten unconscious and three other people were hurt in an anti-Semitic attack in Manchester. The attack was widely condemned by British officials.

In recent years there has been a surge in hate crimes in Britain and specifically in London, where there have been dozens of anti-Semitic attacks. Recently released statistics found a 61 percent increase in anti-Semitic crime in Britain in the last year. In the past week alone, a racist man who threatened to “kill all the Jews” at a London Jewish neighborhood was found guilty of anti-Semitic abuse.

Last October, a series of anti-Semitic incidents occurred in one day in Stamford Hill.