Just a harmless practical joke?

This road sign that appeared on Tuesday in a predominantly Jewish area of London, Stamford Hill is racism at its worst. It apparently warns people in the area to ‘beware of Jews’.

The sign shows the silhouette of an Orthodox Jewish man wearing a Fedora hat. In this pointed attempt to bring unease and anti-Semitic feeling to the Jewish community in the area, the sign was put up within 200 meters of a Synagogue.

London is city that celebrates differences in culture, beliefs and race. Signs like this and the ignorant and racist motivations behind them need to be challenged. Living in a North London borough myself,  a multi-cultural mix is completely unavoidable and it’s one of the reasons that I love London so much.

Within a ten minute radius of my house is one of the largest Turkish populations in the city and within a few minutes of this, you can find authentic Italian restaurants sitting alongside Ethiopian or Indian, while the pavements outside, bustle with of people of all nations, speaking languages that I often don’t understand.

I’m not from here and I feel at home. I would hope that the Jewish people who saw the sign know that this is the act of someone living in fear and acting out of a place of ignorance. The pity has to lie with this person.

London is a city that will always have its door open.