Police investigating graffiti on telephone booth in London describing orthodox Jews as “leeches”
Graffiti describing charedi (orthodox) Jews as “leeches” is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service after being reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, a Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.
The graffiti was found on a telephone booth in an area of London with a large Jewish population. The graffiti included a drawing of a charedi Jew, along with the words “47 leeches”. The number 47 could be a reference to a logo used by the band Pro Era, which combined the digits 4 and 7 in a manner which resembled the swastika flag used by Nazi Germany. Neo-Nazi groups commonly use numeric codes such as 14, 18 and 88, which are usually quite simplistic, for example 18 refers to the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, which are Adolf Hitler’s initials.
British Telecom will be removing the graffiti and it has been temporarily covered. Anybody with information should call the police on 101, citing reference number 2516 of 7th July 2017.
Graffiti on a phone box depicting Jews as "Leeches" (a term used by anti-Semites). The number "47" is a code for a modern Swastika variant pic.twitter.com/zIhzRXFSdN
— Shomrim (Stamford Hill) (@Shomrim) July 7, 2017
