Scottish Rabbi Victimized by Kippah-Grabbing Attacker in Edinburgh

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(JTA) — A Scottish rabbi told the country’s Parliament that he and his family were victims of an anti-Semitic attack.
Rabbi Yossi Bodenheim, the Jewish chaplain for Scottish universities, told Parliament last week that he was walking with his wife and children in central Edinburgh last month when his wife was shoved and his kippah taken from his head and thrown to the ground.
“My wife and I took our four young children for a walk in this beautiful city. However, as we were walking, a woman pushed my wife aside, grabbed my kippah, threw it on the ground and ran away,” he told lawmakers, according to reports. “That took place less than a mile from here, in front of my young children. You can imagine how distressed they were.”
Bodenheim also said that anti-Semitism is a problem on university campuses.
“As Scotland’s Jewish student chaplain, my role is to bring chesed [loving kindness] to Jewish students and to make sure that they are comfortable on campus, whether it is ensuring their welfare, providing social and educational events, or just being a listening ear,” he said. “I also have to help them cope with anti-Semitism because, unfortunately, it is an issue on campus as well.”
A report by the Scottish Council of Jewish communities, or ScoJeC, released in July found that Jews in Scotland are feeling greater unease living in their country and that one in six respondents said they now keep their Jewish identity secret.
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