My Friend Was Attacked for Being Jewish. I Can’t Pretend That’s Normal
On Thursday, July 17th, my friend was assaulted in London. Not because she said or did anything, but simply because she’s Jewish. While visiting the city, she was eating at Reubens Café when a woman approached her, asked if the place was kosher, and if they were Jewish. Thinking this woman was lost or wanted to eat at the cafe, my friend said yes. She then picked up my friend’s food and threw it at her. Then she starts yelling, smacks the phone out of her hand, and goes on this wild, hate-filled rant that no one could really understand, except for the part that made everything clear: “I don’t care if you support Israel. You’re Jewish. That’s enough.” She yelled.
On Saturday night, I watched the video my friend recorded. I asked her if I could post it, and it went viral. Hundreds of thousands of people saw it. Some were shocked. Some were furious. Some were confused. But a lot of people stayed quiet. And that silence, that’s what scares me most. Because this wasn’t 1939. This wasn’t some far-off corner of the world. This was London. This was 2025. A woman walked into a kosher café, screamed at Jews, attacked them, threw food, and shattered someone’s phone, and people still aren’t sure if it’s “really antisemitism”?
Let’s be honest. If someone walked into a halal restaurant and did this to Muslim customers, there would be national headlines, protests, and statements from MPs. But when it happens to Jews? There’s hesitation, nuance, and there’s “we need to understand the context.” What context justifies assault?
The police came, eventually. They arrested the woman, a 32-year-old, on suspicion of a hate crime. She was released on bail. That’s all I know. I keep thinking about how casual it all was. How bold and unafraid she seemed. She wasn’t hiding her face, and she didn’t care who filmed her. And that’s what this moment is revealing – not that antisemitism exists. We already knew that. What we’re seeing now is that it’s not hiding anymore. It’s loud, shameless, and in public. And when we speak up, when we share these moments, we’re met with silence, or worse, excuses. What happened to my friend wasn’t political, and it wasn’t about Israel. It was about being Jewish. That’s it.
She’s a teenager, just sitting in a kosher café, minding her own business and enjoying her time in London, and she was targeted for it. For simply existing openly as a Jew. And sadly, this wasn’t a one-off incident. Just a day later, a report came out showing that nearly half of Jewish teachers in the UK don’t feel welcome in their own schools. That swastikas are showing up on desks, that Holocaust jokes are being made by students, and that antisemitism in British schools is normal. What scares me most isn’t just what happened, it’s what it represents. My friend and I are both young. We’re part of the generation that’s supposed to carry Jewish life forward, and yet we find ourselves asking: if we’re not safe in schools, if we’re not safe in kosher cafés in broad daylight in London, where are we safe?
I’m the great-grandson of Holocaust survivors. I grew up hearing the stories, imagining the world they came from – a world I always believed was behind us, but moments like this shake that belief. Because if this is what it looks like in 2025, what comes next? That’s why, no matter how much the world changes, I know one thing hasn’t: Israel is the only place where being openly, proudly Jewish doesn’t feel like a risk – it feels like home.
I don’t write this just to inform. I write it to plead: Don’t look away, don’t scroll past, and don’t pretend it’s not real because it’s uncomfortable. This is happening. It’s not “complicated.” It’s not “political.” It’s hate. I wasn’t there when it happened. I didn’t see it with my own eyes. But it hasn’t left my head since. My friend, just a teenager, like me, went to grab lunch in London and left shaken, shoved, and cursed at, for no reason other than being Jewish. Not loud, not political, not in anyone’s face, just visibly Jewish, and that, somehow, was enough. That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about
It didn’t happen in the middle of a protest or late at night in some sketchy alley. It happened in broad daylight, in a kosher restaurant, with people all around. And the woman who did it? She wasn’t hiding, wasn’t whispering – she did it like it was normal, and maybe, that’s what scares me most. That in some places, it is starting to feel normal. It’s weird – I’m in Israel, and I keep asking myself why I feel shaken here over something that happened there. And maybe it’s because it’s becoming harder to ignore.
When antisemitism felt like something in textbooks or museums, it was easier to believe things had changed, but now it’s showing up in restaurants, schools, cafés – in everyday life. And it’s not coming from some distant past. It’s coming for people my age. She didn’t choose to be part of some “moment.” She just wanted to eat lunch. And I’m just trying to make sense of what it means when that’s no longer something you can do safely in a major city, in 2025, with no warning. I don’t have a big message. I’m not trying to make it about me. I just feel like something in the world is tilted a bit. And it’s hard to tilt it back.
