Via
Times of Israel:
A non-Jewish Arab man wearing a kippah and carrying several concealed knives was intercepted by guards as he attempted to enter an Antwerp synagogue.
The 34-year-old Iraqi citizen was questioned by guards when he tried to enter the Romi Goldmuntz Synagoge in the Belgian city on Monday, during the holiday of Shavuot, the Joodse Actueel newspaper reported Tuesday. The man said he spoke neither Hebrew nor Yiddish but insisted he was a member of the city’s Jewish community, the report said, citing police sources.
The guards — members of the community’s Shmira security service — had approached the man with some suspicion because they saw him arrive on a bicycle, a means of transportation that few observant Jews in Antwerp use on Jewish holidays.
The man did speak good Flemish, the report said. The guards called police, who detained the man for questioning.
“He came in wearing a hat and a kippah and pretended to be Jewish, but it was immediately clear to us he did not belong to the Jewish community,” one guard, who was not named, told Joods Actueel.
Attempts to gain access to synagogues, which are restricted to worshipers for security reasons, are common in Antwerp. But such attempts by men carrying knives are extremely rare.
Still, the incident may not have been an attempted attack, Joods Actueel wrote. The knives he carried were small, not much larger than the blade of a pocket knife, and the man seemed not entirely focused, the report said.
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Via
JTA:
A Jewish man was assaulted on the Netherlands’ national holiday of liberation from the Nazis by revelers who sang about gassing Jews.
The man, identified in the Dutch media only as Joram, complained to police that he was pushed around, kicked and verbally assaulted with anti-Semitic hate speech by a group of about 50 men in the Hague on May 5, a national holiday known as Liberation Day.
Joram, 35, asked men celebrating in a park near the Dutch parliament building to stop singing the offensive song, whose lyrics include: “My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews ’cause Jews burn the best.”
The chanters then began pushing Joram around as police stood idly by, he told the AD news site and the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI.
The men were wearing soccer shirts of the Feyenoord club of Rotterdam. The club’s rival is Amsterdam’s Ajax team, which is widely associated with Jews.
The chant, whose use was first reported by the media in 2015, has proliferated in the Netherlands and Belgium in recent years. In some cases, fans chant it to taunt counterparts from rival teams.
Hidde van Koningsveld, the head of the pro-Israel CiJo group, last week told the Dutch media he experiences an anti-Semitic incident at least once a week in the Hague, where he works, because he wears a kippah.
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Via
JTA:
A man in northern France said he stabbed his neighbor because he “wanted to kill a Jew.”
The attack, first reported on April 8, occurred in Bourdon, a commune in the Somme department in northern France, on April 5, the French-language 20 Minutes news website reported.
The victim, a 58-year-old man, was stabbed 15 times in his stomach and face. He was injured in the liver and gallbladder and underwent surgery, according to the report.
He was saved by a friend, who was with him at the time of the assault, who came between the victim and the attacker.
The attacker, 18, told witnesses that he “wanted to kill a Jew.” According to the report, the victim is not Jewish.
He was indicted for attempted murder due to race or ethnicity.
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Via
KolHaolam:
ANTWERP: A Muslim man was arrested after attempting to attack a Orthodox
Jewish woman in Antwerp, Belgium near Belz Shul, suspect arrested.
Via
Jerusalem Post:
Only a few days after the Macron said he would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, also stating that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, the country saw a rise in antisemitic incidents lately.
It seems that Macron's words created the opposite effect in France, and the Bureau for the War on Antisemitism called the rise in incidents as "frightening." Among other incidents, graffiti were found condemning Jews in various parts of the country.
(...)
A 17-year-old riding a bicycle in a suburb north of Paris, was attacked by three unknown assailants who called him "dirty Jew", broke his wrist and robbed his cell phone, all for wearing a kippah.
A 51-year-old woman was attacked near her home in Garez-les-Gons by two men with knives. The two called out to her, "Jewish whore, we'll burn all of you."
In another incident, people inscribed "dirty Jew" on the nameplate of a Jewish doctor on the facade of a dental clinic in Paris whereas they did not touch the label of his colleague a non-Jewish doctor.
There were also reports of Jews in the country receiving death threats by phone and mail, sometimes accompanied by swastikas.
Jerome Rodriguez, one of the prominent leaders of the yellow vests movement in France, who lost his eye from a rubber bullet fired by the police, told Maariv that his movement was not antisemitic. (...) According to Rodriguez, he did not take part in a demonstration against antisemitism because he was "busy visiting his movement's checkpoints in various parts of the country." However, he added that if he had time, he would prefer to participate in a demonstration organized by an anti-Zionist organization that supports boycotting Israel".
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Via
Jewish News:
There has been a spate of alleged antisemitic attacks in Stamford Hill in the past week, with reports of bricks thrown in the windows of Jewish homes and a family subjected to abuse on Shabbat.
The Met Police received reports a man was allegedly punched by one of four women who apprehended him and shouted antisemitic abuse at around 11.40am last Saturday.
According to the neighbourhood watch group Stamford Hill Shomrim, the man was leaving Shul with his family when he was allegedly punched and called a “germ on society”.
However, the Met Police said they closed the case after the victim failed to attend an appointment.
The victim, who did not wish to be named, told Jewish News: “My family witnessed it, and they are still in shock.
“My son woke up last night crying about it and was all traumatised.
“I was trying to calm him down as best as possible and trying my best to speak to him about it. It’s not an easy thing to explain.”
The father said he did not attend the meeting because of a lack of faith in the system. “The punishment is always minor when it comes to antisemitism,” he added.
On Wednesday, a man walked into a clothing shop in Clapton Common at around 1.30pm and shouted antisemitic abuse at a shop assistant.
The Met Police said the incident took place after the man asked whether the shop assistant wanted the windows cleaned and disputed the price they had agreed on.
Shomrim added the suspect had allegedly shouted: “Hitler should have called [ed. killed] all the Jews”.
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Via
Jerusalem Post:
Two teenagers fired shots from an air rifle at a synagogue in Paris on Friday night, lightly injuring a Jewish man in the leg, French media reported on Tuesday.
According to the Le Parisien newspaper, the attack was staged against a synagogue in the Sarcelles suburb of Paris from an apartment facing the building.
Police searched the apartment and confiscated a 4.5mm calibre rifle, while the teenagers themselves were arrested on Saturday. The state prosecutor believes that the attack was carried out for antisemitic motives.
The president of the Jewish community of Sarcelles was quoted as saying, however, that he believed the attack was not antisemitic, adding that it was carried out due to “stupidity” and that the teenagers would have shot anyone. But he said he was still concerned about antisemitism in the suburb.
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Via
Times of Israel:
A man who tried to prevent a suspected anti-Semitic assault at a German train station was severely beaten by the alleged culprit.
The incident unfolded on Jan. 23 at the train station of Langen, a southern suburb of Frankfurt. An inebriated 27-year-old German citizen of Cameroonian descent accosted verbally and then shoved to the ground a much older man who was dressed like an Orthodox Jew, the Hessenschau newspaper reported Tuesday.
The older man got up and boarded a train unscathed, but a passerby who intervened ended up being injured much more seriously by the alleged aggressor, the paper reported. The 48-year-old victim was pummeled repeatedly and severely injured on his face and hands, the report said.
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Via
CFCA:
Rome – “Today in Rome: I’m standing in front of Feltrinelli, waiting for a person, a guy with a swastika on his arm, approach to me and spitt in my face, I was so shocked that I did not even react. He probably did it because I had a canvas bag from the Yiddish course in Tel Aviv, proof of antisemitism .
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Via
The Local:
The number of anti-Semitic violent attacks in Berlin more than tripled in Berlin in 2018 compared to the previous year, according to provisional police statistics.
The German capital’s first commissioner for anti-Semitism, Claudia Vanoni, who took up her post on September 1st last year, said seven violent anti-Semitic attacks were recorded by police in 2017, compared to 24 incidents which were recorded between January and mid-December 2018.
Vanoni described it as a “drastic increase” in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung published earlier this week.
These are provisional figures which may change if, for example, more crimes are reported.
When it comes to non-violent anti-Semitic crimes, according to Vanoni police recorded a total of 305 incidents in Berlin in 2017. Last year, 295 cases were recorded up until mid-December.
“Considering that cases are usually reported later, there will probably be a slight increase in the number of cases in 2018,” said Vanoni, regarding these figures.
The majority of these cases involve offensive language against others and damage to property, such as hate-filled graffiti.
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Via
JTA:
A French-Jewish woman told police that two teenagers hurling anti-Semitic insults robbed and hit her on a main street of Paris suburb.
The woman, aged 20, said in her complaint to police that the incident happened Monday in the heavily Jewish suburb of Sarcelles north of Paris, the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, wrote in a statement Tuesday.
Prying her cellphone out of her hands, the two assailants, whom she said were black, hit her face while saying: “Are you afraid, you Jewess?” she told police. A passerby intervened, allowing the woman to flee to her home with a broken nose and bloody face, the report said. She was on her way home from work, she also said. The two alleged assailants fled the scene. BNVCA called on police to investigate and apprehend the suspects.
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Via
Hungary Today:
Jobbik deputy group leader and parliamentary notary István Szávay announced his immediate resignation on Thursday following the release of recordings containing anti-Semitic comments and details of an alleged assault.
On Wednesday, Hir TV presented a sound recording of Szávay privately informing fellow party members at a spring congress that he had verbally and physically assaulted a Jewish woman in a pub the previous day. According to Szávay, the woman initiated the conflict:
“She was yelling, ‘Nazis are stinking here,’ and I just knocked her out, dirty Jew, pakk, just like this.”
He admitted that the recording and the anti-Semitic comments were authentic, however, he insisted that he did not actually physically harm the woman.
In a message posted to his Facebook page on Thursday, Szávay said he informed group leader Márton Gyöngyösi about his resignation, which was accepted, and announced that he will remain a member of the Parliament.
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Via
Times of Israel:
A Jewish woman whose family has endured months of anti-Semitic intimidation in Belgium said a man pointed a gun at her outside her home.
The woman, identified in the Belgian media only as Nicole, told the SudPresse media group that the incident happened on Oct. 9 outside their home in Marchienne-au-Pont, a suburb of Charleroi, 30 miles south of Brussels, the media group’s report from Friday said.
...
Recounting the firearm incident, Nicole told SudPresse: “We stopped at a red light in front of a hair salon near our street. There was a bearded individual there whom I recognised because he verbally assaulted me two weeks ago. He turned to us. He first looked at my husband and then at me, saying: ‘I’m going to put a bullet in your head’.” Then he took out a gun and pointed it in her direction, Nicole said.
Earlier this year, the La Meuse regional daily published an article about the multiple cases of harassment directed at the couple. They had been living for over two years in Marchienne-au-Pont without incident, according to the report.
But this summer, the report said, she and her family have been targeted in a campaign of harassment that has featured written death threats stuffed into their mailbox and the scrawling of anti-Semitic graffiti on their front door.
“We are too afraid to leave our home since this started,” Nicole, a native of Chile, told the newspaper. “Several people discovered we’re Jewish and ever since we’ve been getting death threats.” One letter addressed to Nicole called her a “dirty whore” and other insults.
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Via
Times of Israel:
French police have arrested four men suspected of assaulting four Jewish youths in an anti-Semitic assault in Nice, apparently triggered by the assailants spotting a Star of David pendant one of the victims was wearing.
The incident in the southern French city occurred in the city center at about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, according to a report by the France3 television station.
The four suspects and a fifth teenager, who was not immediately apprehended, assaulted the alleged victims, beating them and causing minor injuries. At least one of the perpetrators also stole a golden chain from one of the victims, the municipality said.
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Via
The Local:
A
Jewish rights group has said that a fire affecting a politician's house
in southern Sweden was likely a deliberate "anti-Semitic attack" and
followed threats and harassment of local public figures with a Jewish
background.
Police were called to a fire at a private property in
Lund, owned by a local politician, shortly after 2am on Tuesday
morning. Police later said that several people in the same row of
terraced homes had been evacuated but no one had been injured in the
fire.
The Jewish Community of Malmö chairman Fredrik Sieradzki
told The Local that the property owner had previously received
anti-Semitic threats.
"This person has been threatened and
harassed earlier this year, and been given messages that were clearly
anti-Semitic. We had already been helping her with these threats, and
our suspicion is very strong that it's an anti-Semitic attack. Police
also see this as an arson," Sieradzki said.
The organization
called the fire "an attack on Swedish democracy" and said that it had a
"strong suspicion" that there was an anti-Semitic motive in a statement
released on Wednesday.
read more
Via
Publication79 (h/t
glykosymoritis):
An attack on ‘Schalom’, a kosher restaurant in Chemnitz, took place almost two weeks ago, on August 27th, 2018. The information surfaced only now. The incident was considered serious. Germany’s antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein said “the most terrible memories from the 1930-s are being awoken.”
On August 27th, Nazis in Chemnitz hunted foreigners in the city center, after a young German man was killed in a stabbing attack. At the same time, about a dozen men dressed in black attacked ‘Schalom’, the German-language ‘Freie Presse Chemnitz’ reported.
At 9:45 p.m., when most guests had already left the restaurant, its owner Uwe Dziuballa heard noises outside, so he left ‘Schalom’ through the main door. He was now confronted with those Nazis, who were holding iron bars and stones and shouted “Jewish pig, get out of Germany!”, in German. Dziuballa was injured on his shoulder, when one of the stones hit him.
read more
Via
Haaretz:
Two unidentified men in Berlin hit a Dutch national and then kicked him after asking him if he is Jewish, a German newspaper reported.
The incident happened Saturday morning in the Spandauer Vorstadt area in Berlin, Der Tagesspiegel reported.
The 31-year-old alleged victim, who is not Jewish and living in Berlin, asked the two men why they wanted to know if he was Jewish. They then assaulted him, the report said.
The two alleged perpetrators left the scene of the incident in a taxi.
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Via
JTA:
Wrapping up a rollout of a major Trump administration effort to fight for religious freedom, Pence made the remarks Thursday on the final day of the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C., after singling out Iran for its persecution of religious minorities.
“While religious freedom is always in danger in authoritarian regimes, threats to religious minorities are not confined to autocracies or dictatorships,” he told government officials from from 80 countries, including Israel. “They can, and do, arise in free societies, as well — not from government persecution but from prejudice and hatred.”
The vice president noted a rise in religious intolerance in Europe.
“Just 70 years after the Holocaust, attacks on Jews, even on aging Holocaust survivors, are growing at an alarming rate,” he said. Pence cited what he said was a record high last year in attacks on British Jews, and warnings of Jewish leaders in France and Germany not to wear kippahs.
“It is remarkable to think that within the very lifetimes of some French Jews — the same French Jews that were forced by the Nazis to wear identifiable Jewish clothing — that some of those same people are now being warned by their democratic leaders not to wear identifiable Jewish clothing,” he said.
“These acts of violence and hatred and anti-Semitism must end,” Pence said to applause.
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Via
JTA:
A 69-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah was assaulted in Paris by a young Arab man who shouted about Allah and Hitler.
In Tuesday’s incident, the alleged assailant hit the Jewish man, pushed him to the ground and dragged him by his hair while shouting “Alla hu akbar, long live Hitler, death to the Jews,” the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, wrote in a statement Wednesday. The call in Arabic means “Allah is the greatest.”
Police apprehended the suspected assailant, the report said. A police physician recommended transferring the suspect to a psychiatric institution for observation because he was in a “state of over-excitement,” according to the information received by BNVCA.
It was the third time this year that French police sent a man who displayed violent behavior toward Jews for psychiatric evaluation.
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