Community leaders are urging residents to boycott a German clothing brand favoured by neo-Nazis, after shop selling the brand opened just yards from the chief r abbi’s office.
Thor Steinar clothes, which are notoriously worn by right-wing extremists, are on sale in the Viking Thor shop in North Finchley, a north London neighbourhood with a high number of Jewish residents.
It is the first shop to sell the brand in London.
A spokesman for the Community Security Trust, the organisation that monitors antisemitism, said:“This is a multi-cultural area with very few problems from racism and neo-Nazism and the like.
“This shop is not welcome here and the sooner it moves on the better.”
Yad Vashem trustee Ashley Rogoff said the shop was a “very worrying development” in the area.
He said: “One of the tasks we set ourselves is to monitor and act when we identify an event that glorifies and supports the far right or neo-Nazism.
“Such an issue has now arisen with the opening of the Thor Steiner shop in North Finchley.
Residents have described the opening of the shop as “deliberately provocative” and fear it will attract racist thugs to the area.
Ben Glickman, 43, from North Finchley, said: “It is disgraceful that this store has opened in a such a prominent Jewish area of London.
“And with so many other ethnic minorities that make up the area.
The brand's original logo resembles the insignia of the SS under Hitler.
The wearing of Thor Steiner products is banned in the German parliament and state assemblies in parts of Germany.
The shop's owner Zsolt Mogyorodi insisted he was not racist and only catering to Eastern European people living nearby who like the brand.
He said:“I’m really upset about this.
“I have lots of black people friends. I’ve got lots of Indian friends. I’m not Nazi. I’m not racist.
“It is just stupid things they write on websites.”
The store is located close to the chief rabbi's office in North Finchley, and also near the headquarters of the Islamic Association of North London.
