King Charles III visits Golders Green to support the Jewish community after a recent antisemitic stabbing attack in north London.
LONDON: Britain’s King Charles III on Thursday visited a north London district whose large Jewish community has been targeted by a spate of antisemitic attacks and met victims of a recent stabbing.
The king, on an unannounced visit, “reaffirmed his support for the Jewish community”, the royal family’s social media account said.
Charles spoke to victims of a daylight knife attack last month, Shloime Rand, 34, and Moshe Ben Baila, 76, also known as Norman Shine, at a Jewish charity centre.
Shine, who was stabbed in the neck on the street in Golders Green on April 29, said afterwards the king “didn’t let go of my hand” and “I felt a genuine warmth and concern”.
The king was on a state visit to the US at the time of the stabbing. The suspected attacker, a 45-year-old who was living at a mental health facility in London, has been charged with attempted murder.
Charles met Jewish volunteers from the Shomrim community force who helped police capture the suspected attacker and congratulated them on their work.
The stabbings came after a series of arson attacks in north London targeting Jewish organisations and Iranian opposition media, claimed by a little-known Iran-linked group.
Charles also met representatives of the Hatzola Jewish charity, four of whose ambulances were set on fire in in March.
He was greeted by cheers from crowds of local people, many of them wearing Jewish clothing such as kippahs and was presented with a loaf of braided challah bread. Some in the crowd shouted “thank you” and “bless you”.
The king was accompanied by Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
Mirvis wrote on Facebook: “Thank you, your Majesty, for coming today to Golders Green to bring comfort and encouragement to our Jewish community”.
Charles’s younger son, Prince Harry, on Thursday in an article in The New Statesman magazine voiced concern over the “deeply troubling rise in anti-Semitism” in Britain, while also condemning “anti-Muslim hatred”.
“When anger is turned toward communities — whether Jewish, Muslim, or any other — it ceases to be a call for justice and becomes something far more corrosive,” the prince wrote.
