Israeli family being “hounded out” of Scotland by anti-Semitic protestors
Nissan Ayalon says he and his family are being forced out of the country, likening treatment to "a game of chase the Jew".
Andrew Sherwood is the Jewish News Sport and Community Editor
An Israeli businessman has said he and his family are being “hounded out” of Scotland by anti-Semitic protestors.
Nissan Ayalon, who sells Israeli cosmetics made from Dead Sea minerals in Aberdeen, has described the treatment to “a game of chase the Jew”.
His claims have though been dismissed by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who say they are neither racist or anti-Semitic, but are objecting to him selling Israeli products.
Having previously had stalls in Belfast and Glasgow, he felt forced to close them down and moved to Aberdeen, where he says the treatment has continued. He told BBC Scotland: “It’s like I don’t have the right to exist. I have to justify my existence. I have to ask for permission to live, to walk to work.
“We were accused of murdering, mass murdering, slaughter, criminals, we were called criminal enterprise. We were called baby killers.
“There is nowhere else for me to go. I love it here, where is my equal opportunity?”
Mick Napier, of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “It’s ludicrous [the claims of anti-Semitism]. We hate the sin, not the sinner. It’s the company that’s being targeted, the individual is irrelevant.
“We talk to people, we try to persuade people to shop elsewhere. He is selling the proceeds of crime.”
Robert Festenstein, from Jewish Human Rights Watch, an organisation set up to address anti-Semitism in the UK, said: “If you target a Jewish man and drive him from Belfast to Glasgow, and then from Glasgow to Aberdeen, and then try and drive them from there, however you claim you might not be anti-Semitic it’s impossible not to acknowledge the truth.
“And it’s not enough for them to say we’re only interested in the product he’s selling. It’s about as serious a case as we’ve found.”
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