Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

French Jew Beaten Unconscious in Subway

A Jewish man was attacked and rendered unconscious in a Paris metro, a local watchdog reported.

The 52-year-old victim entered the subway directly from his synagogue but wore no markings that would identify him as Jewish, according to a report on the late September incident by the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, a nonprofit watchdog organization. The incident occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

He may have been targeted because of a Jewish philosophy book by the chief rabbi of Paris that he was reading in the metro when he was attacked, the report said.

The attackers, who are unknown, knocked the man unconscious with a sharp blow to his temple and did not steal anything from him as he lay unconscious on the subway floor. He sustained minor injuries.

A female passenger found the man lying on the floor and moved him out of the vehicle at Miromesnil station, near Champs-Elysees.

“It is clear from the pattern of incidents we are seeing that this was in all likelihood an anti-Semitic attack,” BNVCA President Sammy Ghozlan told JTA.

Last week, the security unit of France’s Jewish community, SPCJ, reported a 45 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents during the first eight months of 2012 in comparison with their 2011 level of 266 incidents. SPCJ also reported three separate attacks that occurred during the High Holidays.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.