French Jew Badly Beaten in Paris Subway Train
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Four unidentified Arab men savagely beat a French Jew in a Paris Metro train, a watchdog organization reported.
The attack happened Sunday as the train was traveling from Nogent Sur Marne to Gare de Lyon, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA.
Two of the attackers held down the 28-year-old victim, who was identified only as A. Levy, while a third strangled him and beat his face, BNVCA said on its website Monday. The report said Levy sustained some injuries but did not specify.
His attackers shouted the Arab word for “Jews” before attacking Levy, who is a religious Jew belonging to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, the report said. One of them also told him: “Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country,” according to the report.
They stopped assaulting Levy after one of the passengers said loudly that the police were coming, according to BNVCA.
The suspected attackers got off the Metro at the Chatelet-les Halles station in the heart of the French capital. Levy stayed on the train and filed a police complaint for aggravated assault at Gare de Lyon, the report said.
On Sunday, the SPCJ monitor unit of the French Jewish community reported in its annual summary that it had recorded 423 anti-Semitic incidents in France during 2013. The figure constitutes a 31-percent decrease over the previous year, but is still eight percent higher than in 2011.
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