Hate crime arrest outside Reuben’s after kosher diners attacked
Pro-Palestinian woman filmed throwing food and phone in violent antisemitic assault
A woman has reportedly been arrested after an attack outside Reuben’s kosher restaurant on Baker Street last week.
Video footage of the attack shared on social media showed a woman approaching diners at a table and throwing their food at them and onto the floor.
Someone off camera can be heard saying: “My phone’s broken…she threw my phone on the floor, it’s broken. She’s pro-Palestinian – she said something about…’Jewish’.”
The woman then appeared to remonstrate with people sitting outside the next café along, and appeared to say, among other things, “I asked her if she was Israeli – she said yes.”
In a message from CST on Sunday, the organisation said: “We are aware of an incident that took place in London where police arrested a woman for a violent outburst, which we believe is being treated as a hate crime.
“CST attended the scene and has been supporting some of the customers in the restaurant at the time it occurred. This is one of many antisemitic incidents to happen in recent months in which Jews have been subjected to hatred and abuse, with Israel used as the excuse.”
Yael Isaac, who was one at the diners at Reuben’s who was targeted, told Jewish News that she and her four friends “were sitting eating our food in peace and this woman came up to us and asked if it was a kosher restaurant. Thinking she was lost or wanted to eat there I said yes.
“In that moment she pushed her body forward and screamed in me and my friends face ‘free Palestine’ and told us we were killing babies. She yelled at us for about 3 mins straight) then walked towards other people to yell at them.
“Then, when she saw I was filming [she] came back, threw our water at us and took her hand, put it in our salad and threw it at our faces, threw my phone on the floor and all our food with it.”
It became clear that this was not an ‘anti-Zionist’ attack.
“In general we couldn’t understand half the things she was saying”, Yael told Jewish News, “but at one point during her tantrum I asked her ‘what if I don’t support Israel?’ She said she didn’t care and that I was Jewish so that’s all that mattered to her.”
Yael said that while she and her friends had not been physically hurt, others had been, alleging that “she had slapped someone and dug her nails into someone’s arm, causing blood.”
It was at that point, she said, that “police were called and arrested her. Then we sat with them filling a report for 3 hours after I calmed down from my panic attack.”
Yael and her friends are Israeli, but she confirmed that both her parents were British and were the only ones from their families to have made aliyah, so her extended family all live in England.
“Me and my friends came over on vacation”, she told Jewish News, describing how after the attack she “was in shock, then I felt fear, not just from the incident but also for the Jewish community in London.
“Antisemitism is rising and it feels like no one cares.”
The video footage of the woman remonstrating with individuals seated at a nearby café appears to show her standing next to Haleem Kherallah, a Palestinian businessman who owns the Shakeshukah Palestinian restaurant a five-minute walk away. There is no suggestion from the video that Kherallah was involved in the incident.
Kherallah, who prior to 7 October was perhaps best known for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to buy an ownership stake in Queens Park Rangers football club.
In October and November 2023, Kerallah described how the restaurant was receiving regular abuse and death threats, leading to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, paying a public visit to the restaurant for a meal in November 2023.
The restaurant received public notoriety last month after it appeared to host a ‘watch party’ for the Iranian missile strikes on Israel.
A Met Police spokesperson said: “At 16:32hrs on Thursday, 17 July police were called to a café in Baker Street, W1. It was alleged that a woman had assaulted staff and customers while shouting antisemitic abuse and comments related to the conflict in the Middle East.
“Officers attended and arrested a 32-year-old woman on the street nearby on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage and multiple assaults (ABH).
“She was taken into custody and subsequently bailed pending further enquiries.”
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