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Mein Kampf found on prominent display at new London Arabic bookshop
CST calls Hitler’s manifesto the ‘most infamous antisemitic text of the Holocaust era’ as Board of Deputies investigates with communal partners
Multiple Arabic-language copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf have been found prominently displayed at a new bookshop in central London.
The books were spotted at Aafaq Bookstore on Edgware Road by Elliot Keck, Conservative councillor for Hyde Park, when he visited the shop on Wednesday evening.
Photographs shared by Keck show several copies of Hitler’s manifesto laid out together on one of the shop’s main display tables.
Keck told Jewish News: “It makes me sick to my stomach to find copies of Mein Kampf being proudly displayed in a new bookshop in my ward.
“Let’s be clear – these are not being sold as academic reference pieces. They appear to have been published by the bookshop or its owner itself and are being displayed on one of the main display tables.
“While the council likely doesn’t have any powers to crack down on this, from my perspective this hideous little business is not welcome, and I very much hope to see it fail.”
A Community Security Trust (CST) spokesperson told Jewish News: “No London Arabic bookshop should be publishing and promoting Mein Kampf, the most infamous antisemitic text of the Holocaust era.”
A Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) spokesperson said: “For an Arabic bookshop to be publishing and selling copies of Mein Kampf in the centre of London is utterly horrifying and highlights the major problem of Islamist extremism within parts of British society. In a climate of rising and ever more violent antisemitism, there must be stronger action to tackle the extremist ideologies that fuel it.”
Board of Deputies president Phil Rosenberg said the organisation was investigating alongside other communal groups.
Writing on X, he said: “The absolute state of this. If a minority community bookstore is promoting – without clear refutation – one of history’s most notorious racist texts, which prefigured the industrial mass-murder of 6 million Jews, Roma, gay men, disabled people and others, it would be totally unconscionable.
“We are investigating along with our communal partners.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also raised concerns over the distinction between editions produced for historical study and those which present Hitler’s text without critical context.
A CAA spokesperson said: “Businesses should not be profiting from selling the most extreme anti-Jewish propaganda, particularly at a time when antisemitism in Britain is at a record high.
“There is certainly a place for understanding history through annotated versions of texts which give important context, but not books that simply regurgitate hate and risk inciting violence.”
They added: “Bookshops selling Mein Kampf should immediately withdraw them and similar materials from sale. This incident will rightly prompt questions about why this shop is selling these books, and why they are so popular among their clientele as to justify holding multiple copies in stock.”
The Arabic edition photographed in the shop carries the name Aafaq Publishing and Distribution on its back cover. Its ISBN identifies it as an Arabic edition published by Aafaq.
Aafaq Publishing & Distribution and the Edgware Road bookshop are both owned by Dr Naser Al Shammari, 47, from Kuwait.
There is nothing visible on the front or back cover identifying the book as a critical or annotated edition. Jewish News has not examined its contents.
The distinction is significant because Mein Kampf is also published in annotated editions intended for academic and historical study, in which Hitler’s claims and ideology are placed in context and challenged.
A visitor to the shop also criticised the prominence given to the book in a Google review posted on Wednesday.
The reviewer said the shop had a “nice vibe and a good English selection”, but that seeing an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf on the main browsing table had “completely ruined the visit for me”.
They added: “Stocking historical texts on back shelves is one thing, but putting hate propaganda front and centre on a featured display table is really off-putting. I hope the owners rethink where they place titles like that and move them to a proper history section instead.”
Mein Kampf, meaning “My Struggle”, was first published in 1925 after Hitler began writing it while imprisoned following the failed Beer Hall Putsch.
The book set out Hitler’s antisemitic and racist worldview and his political ambitions years before the Nazis came to power and murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust.
It remains legal to sell Mein Kampf in Britain, including editions used for historical and academic study.
Lord Ian Austin was among the politicians to condemn the display, writing on X: “Disgusting. What is going on in our country?”
Keck also raised concerns about the bookshop’s proximity to West Central Liberal Synagogue.
Jewish News has contacted Aafaq Bookstore for comment.
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