Two thugs beat a Jewish man after he tried to stop them from spray-painting an anti-Israel “genocide” slur.
Dan Levene was attacked on Tuesday evening while the assailants were stencilling graffiti on the cobblestones of Queen Square in central London.
Tuesday’s incident took place in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, which goes to the polls today in a by-election triggered by Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as an MP last month.
The graffiti appeared to target Labour’s candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, branding her a “puppet of the genocidal Israeli regime”.
Mr Levene, a communications consultant, said he was kicked in the head and ribs by the two men.
The 52-year-old described how he had been walking home after an evening at the theatre when he noticed two figures crouched on the ground.
As he drew nearer, he realised they were using a stencil to spray-paint a message onto the pavement.
“I turned to face the same way they were and read what their graffiti said,” he explained, then kicked the stencil away.
“All this stuff about genocide and Israelis exerting puppetry control over people. This is the message of the Nazis that Jewish people escaped in the middle of the last century,” Mr Levene told the men.
The larger of the two men rose to his feet and began shouting before launching a physical assault, punching Mr Levene and then repeatedly kicking his legs in an apparent effort to force him to the ground.
“He started kicking me in the side of my legs quite hard for about 20 seconds, clearly trying to get me down on the floor,” the 52-year-old told The Times.
As he attempted to retrieve his mobile phone to photograph his assailants, Levene lost his footing and fell.
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Both men then set upon him, delivering kicks and blows to his head and ribs while he lay on the ground.
“At that point I had what felt like an 18-stone guy on top of me,” he recalled.
The beating was only stopped when a woman and another bystander rushed out from a nearby pub after witnessing the attack, after which the two assailants fled the scene.
Mr Levene subsequently shared a photograph on X showing blood streaming from wounds to his head.
His injuries from the assault included bruising across multiple parts of his body and a cracked rib.
The Metropolitan Police are investigating the incident as an antisemitic hate crime, according to the Jewish News.
Mr Levene, who describes himself as “proudly Jewish”, said the experience reflected a deeply troubling climate for Jewish people in Britain.
“It’s given people carte blanche to attack others, and specifically Jews,” he told the Jewish News.
“It is a worrying and scary time to be Jewish at the moment as a result.”
Mr Levene stressed he was not associated with any political candidate but felt compelled to share his experience.
There is no suggestion that this incident related to campaigning in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency.
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