Jewish Man Assaulted In Berlin For Wearing Star Of David

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Image by Lilit Marcus
(JTA) — A Jewish Syrian man was assaulted in a park in Berlin by a group of men and women who he asked for a light for his cigarette after they noticed he was wearing a Star of David.
The 10 men and women ages 15 to 21 were detained in the park following the assault on Saturday night, and later released pending an investigation, the German news service Deutsche Welle reported. The group included six Syrians and three Germans, according to the report.
The victim told Deutsche Welle that when a member of the group saw his Star of David he shouted “anti-Semitic insults,” grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and punched him.
The group chased him, knocked him to the ground and beat him, according to the report. He was hospitalized for his injuries.
The attackers ran away when passersby came to help the downed man.
The attack comes days after a Syrian man, 19, was found guilty of an April attack against an Israeli man who was wearing a kippah on a Berlin street. The attacker lashed the man with his belt while shouting the Arabic word for Jew, “Yahudi.” The victim, who is not Jewish, had placed the kippah on his head as an experiment to see “how bad it is to walk Berlin’s streets as a Jew today.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward J.B. Pritzker accuses Trump of ‘disparaging the very foundation of Judaism’
-
Fast Forward Trump on Iran: ‘If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack’ into war
-
Opinion No, Pete Hegseth and Itamar Ben-Gvir don’t look alike — but that’s where the differences end
-
News Why Zohran Mamdani believes he’ll win over Jewish voters, as Israel critic surges to second behind Cuomo in NYC mayoral race
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.