London police officer (archive)
London police officer (archive)iStock

An Orthodox Jewish man was threatened with beheading after he was confronted by a knife-wielding man in London Monday.

The incident occurred in the Whitechapel section of London Monday morning, when a 34-year-old man accosted an Orthodox Jewish man in his 40s who was walking down the street to his place of work.

The suspect shouted anti-Semitic epithets at the Jewish man, including calling him a “f***ing Jew”.

When the suspect drew a knife, the Jewish man began to run, with the suspect chasing behind him, shouting “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to chop your head off.”

The Jewish man “saw that he took out a knife and he started running away, he was just running for his life,” Barnet Councillor Nizza Fluss told the Evening Standard.

Fluss added that the target of the assault was “absolutely traumatized” and hasn’t been able to return to work following the harrowing encounter.

“I’m so upset,” said Fluss, “I can’t function, he’s such a nice, lovely person and is a very religious man.”

According to a statement tweeted by the Tower Hamlets Police Department, the suspect was later arrested and the knife he used to threaten his would-be victim was recovered.

“At around 10am on 1 July a Jewish man was threatened by another man in Dunbridge St, E1. The suspect was carrying a knife. Police responded + arrested a 34yo man nearby for a racially aggravated public order offence. A knife was recovered from the suspect who remains in custody.”

On Sunday, another anti-Semitic incident was reported in London, this time outside of an Orthodox Jewish school in the Hackney district.

Police say a man approached a group of young boys and their mothers outside of a school affiliated with the Satmar Hasidic movement, shouting “I will kill all you Jews.”

The suspect attacked one person, the local Shomrim neighborhood watch group reported, before police arrived and arrested the assailant.