Two school buses transporting students from London’s Jewish Free School (JFS) were attacked by a group of teenagers hurling rocks and shouting anti-Israel slurs on Thursday, according to reports from The Jewish Chronicle.
The incident unfolded as approximately ten teenagers from a different school targeted the buses, with four attackers boarding one of them. Witnesses described the attackers swearing at the students, shouting (expletive removed) Israel,” and throwing objects at the children. Some of the teenagers reportedly filmed the attack.
A 12-year-old boy who was on one of the buses told The Jewish Chronicle that the scene was chaotic and terrifying.
“I was sitting at the front of the bus and everyone was completely terrified and hiding under our seats,” the boy said. “It was really scary. They had big heavy rocks.”
He added that the attackers yelled profanities at the children and that multiple passersby witnessed the attack but did not intervene.
An 11-year-old girl, Gabi, recounted how some students got off the bus to escape. “I don’t know what they are going to do with that video,” she said, expressing fear about the attackers filming the incident.
One parent, who spoke to police and later gave a statement, shared their deep concern over the attack. “Nothing prepares you for this as a parent,” they said. “It makes me wonder what sort of hate these children are being taught at school.”
The Community Security Trust (CST), an organization dedicated to protecting Jewish communities in the UK, is providing support to the affected students. CST’s Director of Policy, Dave Rich, posted about the incident on social media, noting that the attack occurred near another school whose students have caused issues in the past.
“We are supporting JFS and speaking to the other school to see if they can deal with it,” Rich stated.
Police are reportedly investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made as of now.
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13 Responses
Once again, the clickbait drama, by now it just makes me laugh!
Just to note, the only thing Jewish about JFS is the first letter of it’s name.
1) They have long ago lost the Jewishness.
2) They are known instigators of fights (whether or not this time this was the case I do not yet know), but the school whose students did this vile thing should also be put in place.
I remember when there was a major fight between a Jew-ish school in NW London and a non-Jewish school, where it actually came to deaths and severe injuries, and by both sides, not just the ‘victimised’ “Jewish” school….
Again, regarding this particular story we’ll have to wait and see the details, but don’t believe the money laundering mosrim at CST, or Chillul Shabbat Trust.
The da says they can’t prosecute ad they are not able to locate the perpetrators. After being presented with a video, they say it us inconclusive and they require more proof.
To be accepted to jfs only one parent has to be jewish, that can even be the father! many of the children in this school are not jewish.
secondly just to point out this school doesn’t even have school buses! This incident happened on a public bus.
YWN should really do their homework before posting their articles.
To be accepted to jfs only one parent has to be jewish, that can even be the father! many of the children in this school are shvartzes and not jewish.
secondly just to point out this school doesn’t even have school buses! This incident happened on a public bus.
YWN should really do their homework before posting their articles, they just make themselves look ridiculous with their uneducated titles.
Pls ignore pure yiddishkeit judgementalism and loshin hora about a Jewish group.
Whereas JFS students weren’t zoche to be raised in such a kodesh environment as pure yiddishkeit, theres some very holy staff trying to give over “pure yiddishkeit” including friends rabbi husband and all beautiful Jewish neshamas (some of which become frum) (do we still dare to judge the not yet frum hostages and corbonos of oct 7???)
How dare you they have plenty of Jewishness at jfs and the amount of Kiruv that’s going on there is amazing keep your stupid comments to yourself
To be accepted to jfs only one parent has to be jewish, that can even be the father! many of the children in this school are not jewish.
secondly just to point out this school doesn’t even have school buses! This incident happened on a public bus.
YWN should really do their homework before posting their articles, it makes them look ridiculous and uneducated
“Just to note, the only thing Jewish about JFS is the first letter of it’s name.”
And that’s not only good enough, but triple alarming in the level of hate and racism in this article and crime as per your standards.
pure “yiddishkeit”: Did you go to JFS? I did. I was there when it was in Camden and when it moved to Kingsbury. There were NEVER fights between JFS and any other school (Holloway school would be the local school you will have been referring to, as there were always rumors of violence from them – but never any actual incidents beyond a mugging here are there). Certainly there was never anything instigated from our side. We were small, middle class for the most part and not violent. I remember precisely one fight in the school (as in between two kids in JFS itself) the entire time I was there and it was an event!
frishe kigel: JFS does have school buses. They initiated the program when the school moved to Kingsbury.
Regarding both your comments to the effect of “It doesn’t matter because the school isn’t Jewish enough”: You are right that over the last decade, the school was forced by the government to admit non-Jewish students (all state-aided faith schools in the UK were forced to admit students of all faiths years ago – Frum schools are pretty much all not state-aided). However the majority of puplis are halachically Jewish and there are a number of students who become frum by the end of their time there. I myself was niskarev thgrough a Rabbi who taught Jewish Studies at the school and encouraged a group of us to go the JLE in Golders Green where we encountered Rabbi Akiva Tatz and had our first taste of gemara. One of that group is a Rosh Kollel in Beit Shemesh today. Another is a mechaber seforim. I’m aware of at least one other Rosh Kollel who was a couple of years below me. I remember that R Sheinberg used to visit the school once a year and there was a boy who (while still at the school!) was actually mesayem shas mishnayos and R Scheinberg came to the siyum. Not to mention the many many kids who because their parents didn’t send them to a straight up goyish school, retained some connection with their religion and ultimately ended up either becoming frum to some degree or with kids who ended up becoming frum.
I hope you guys respond and I hope your response is “Yes I’m sorry I was wrong and I’ve done teshuva”
@bensolomon, just to clarify, i was not intending in any way, shape or form to put down JFS, however readers of YWN can very easily be mislead to thinking that i’ts a heimishe school and they get the feeling from their ridiculous headlines that it’s dangerous to go out in the streets of london with a capel etc.
my intent was to make sure that readers realise that YWN don’t really know what they’re talking about and seem to have an addiction to mislead people of create horror stories out of nothing for obvious reasons
@Bensolomon,
aybe I didn’t make it clear enough, but the story that I was talking about was not JFS, in fact look at my wording again and you’ll see that I said “I remember when there was a major fight between a Jew-ish school in NW London”.
I wrote it afterwards, in a new paragraph, but I understand why you thought I meant JFS, sorry for that.
I have heard of many Rabbi’s and religious and just ehrlich Jews who learnt there, as you mentioned, but not knowing how old you are and what your age is, it might be that the period of when I was a school boy and when you was, was a different period, and therefore things might have changed…?
I personally remember the rowdiness (and ‘disrupting of public order’ 😊) that JFS students were responsible for.
If you read again, I wrote that I do not know the full details of what happened in this articles incident, but I do know that JFS kids are not always such nice simple lambs that were attacked by the bully wolf, that all.
@Pure Yiddishkeit,
I was at JFS more than 20 years ago. My older sister went there (she became frum too by the way). My father went there in the 1960’s. My Mother taught there before I was born. I don’t recognize what you describe. In my experience, it was and as far as I know today still is the case that any altercations (which also as far as i know are actually pretty few and far between) are always started by the goy. I have not once that I can recall right now, heard of any time when a yid from JFS or other Jewish school in London or anywhere in the UK that I know of started up with non Jews. That would typically be a stupid move. North West London Jewish teenagers are not typically known for their shall we say – fighting prowess.
@Bensolomon,
I am not going to say the name outright, but it was between a certain jewish school beginning with an H and a non jewish school in the area called Hendon school, or better phrased, Hendon zoo.