French Jew Wearing Kippah Threatened With Hammer

By JTA May 17, 2017

(JTA) — A Jewish man told police in the French city of Marseille that he had been assaulted on the street while wearing a kippah by another man wielding a hammer.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning approximately half a mile from the Grand Synagogue of Marseille, the man told police according to a report in the newspaper La Provence.

The alleged attacker produced a hammer, threatened the complainant and tapped him with the instrument without injuring him before fleeing the scene, the Jewish man reportedly told police. His deposition did not offer clear indications that the incident was a hate crime, according to La Provence.

Tzvi Amar, president of the local office of the Consistoire, the French Jewish community’s organization responsible for religious services, said last January that Jews should “remove the kippah during these troubled times” because “the preservation of life is sacrosanct.”

Amar’s statement came after the stabbing of a Jewish man in Marseille in January of 2016 allegedly by a 15-year-old Muslim radical. He sustained minor injuries.

In October 2015, a French man of Algerian descent stabbed a Jewish man who was returning from synagogue and assaulted two others, including a rabbi.

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