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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Aamna Mohdin Community affairs correspondent

‘We run towards danger’: the volunteers tackling antisemitic attacks in London

A Shomrim volunteer in a stab vest walking beside a police car
Ben Grossnass, a volunteer with the Jewish security group Shomrim, at the scene where two people were stabbed in Golders Green, London on Wednesday. Photograph: James Veysey/Shutterstock

Five weeks ago, Ben Grossnass, a longtime volunteer with Shomrim North West London community patrol, was woken by a phone call in the early hours. By the time he arrived at the scene, four Jewish volunteer ambulances had been torched.

On Wednesday this week, the phone rang again at 11.20am. A panicked caller reported a man running along Golders Green Road and Highfield Avenue with a knife, chasing people and stabbing them. Within a minute, a Shomrim volunteer was on the scene. He used his car to block the attacker, slowing him down before officers arrived and, alongside the police, apprehended him.

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