Prince William, the heir to the British throne, said Thursday that antisemitism has no place in society and that he and his wife, Catherine, are worried about its rise in the United Kingdom.
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William, 41, spoke during a visit to the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in central London.
The future king told attendees, who included young ambassadors from the Holocaust Educational Trust and Holocaust survivors, "Prejudice has no place in society. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I want you all to know you can talk about it and your experiences.
'Both Catherine and I are extremely concerned about the rise in antisemitism that you guys have talked about this morning and I'm just so sorry if any of you have had to experience that. It has no place, that's why I'm here today to reassure you all that people do care and people do listen and we can't let that go," he said.
In a touching moment, the Prince of Wales, wearing a yarmulke, laid his hand on the hand of Holocaust survivor Renee Salt, 94, as he listened intently to her. He also met with Manfred Goldberg, whom he had previously met during his visit along with the Princess of Wales to the former Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig in Poland in 2017.
William's visit comes at a time when antisemitism is rising at alarming levels in Britain and around the world. The Jewish advisory body the Community Security Trust (CST) said Britain recorded thousands of antisemitic incidents following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the wake of the atrocities of Oct. 7. The CST has said that 2023 was the worst year for antisemitism in the United Kingdom since it started to record it in 1984.
Last week, the prince released a statement calling for an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the immediate release of the hostages held there.
Shortly after the attacks of Oct. 7, the Prince and Princess of Wales expressed their horror and concern, saying that they were "profoundly distressed by the devastating events that have unfolded in the past days. The horrors inflicted by Hamas's terrorist attack upon Israel are appalling; we utterly condemn them."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
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