A man in a keffiyeh swore at staff and customers in a kosher deli in Edgware.
On Thursday afternoon, a man in his twenties wearing the traditional headdress associated with Palestinian nationalism entered Yakov’s Kitchen and proceeded to shout at a customer.
He called the deli staff “F***ing d*** heads” and said the customer was “f***ing rude.”
Witnesses reported that the argument started on the street. The man followed the woman, a regular at Yakov's, into the deli and proceeded to shout at her. He claimed he had been polite to her outside but that she called him a derogatory name.
He said outside the shop he was “nice” to the woman, but alleged she called him a “twerp.”
In a video circulating on social media, the keffiyeh clad man can be seen filming and approaching the deli counter. Two staff intervened, urging him to leave. One staff member told the man: “Outside, [you can] do whatever you want.”
He responded, “You don’t have to shout, I can shout too. I can shout too, you like it? No, you don’t.”
He then said to the customer: “Shut the f*** up f***ing b*tch, I'm going to wait for her outside.” He said he had come into the shop to “embarrass her in front of all these people, that’s my f***ing point.”
After the brief altercation, which lasted only a few minutes, the man left the shop.
A spokesman for Yakov’s Kitchen told the JC, “Baruch Hashem (thank god) nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Staff at the deli said when the man left the shop they spoke to him outside. “He was calm in the end, and we apologised. What I did not know at the time was that there had been this argument outside the shop. Now I feel sorry for the guy,” said one worker at the deli.
Another customer said the argument began over a parking dispute.
Local MP Daniel Tomlinson has condemned the man’s behaviour: “aggression as seen in the clip is always unacceptable.
"I visited this fabulous deli a few weeks ago, so when I saw the video online I made sure to call up right away and express my support for staff and customers,” Tomlinson told the JC, adding, “As Chipping Barnet's new MP I will be unwavering in my commitment to safety and security for Barnet's Jewish community."
