High-end UK supermarket chain Waitrose stands accused of tolerating antisemitism after an incident at its Harrow branch.
Reportedly, an Orthodox Jewish woman was in the checkout queue on Monday, June 22nd when a “fed-up” fellow shopper began verbally abusing her.
According to a witness:
This man loudly claimed that the problems in the UK are not immigration or the Government but the “f****** Jews.”
Shouts of “F*** the Jews” and “kill Zionist Jews” were also reported, made until the distressed target of the abuse left the store. The witness alerted two staff members to the one-sided lunchtime altercation, including the store manager. Reportedly, the Waitrose colleagues refused to call the police. Eventually the alleged aggressor also vacated the premises, with the initial witness filing a complaint to the police.
Waitrose responded:
We want all our customers to feel welcome when shopping with us and have a zero tolerance policy towards antisemitism. We are very sorry our customer experienced such a distressing incident in our shop.
We reported it to the police earlier this week, and we will cooperate with their investigation including sharing CCTV, which has been retained. Our branch management team was not given the full details of the incident at first, and we apologise for the initial delay in reporting it.
A subsequent X-post from the Campaign Against Antisemitism asked
Has antisemitism become so normalised that supermarket staff refuse to report it to police?
This incident comes at an already awkward time for the authorities in the main town in the London Borough of Harrow, which last month had its civil enforcement officers Umar Siddiq (25) and Joseph Fernandes (38) caught on camera threatening to hospitalize a member of the public.
The altercation in Waitrose adds to the sense that antisemitism in the UK is growing, ranging from a Jew-baiting writer getting nominated as sports journalist of the year, to the attempted murder of Jews on the streets of Manchester and Golders Green.
