Paris Metro passengers stop anti-Jewish harassment
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) – Passengers aboard a metro train in Paris stopped four Arab men from pursuing a Jewish man they were harassing over his faith, the victim said.
The incident late Saturday night unfolded as the train approached the Jaures station in northeast Paris, the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, reported Sunday.
The four men asked a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke for a cigarette, said the report based on the man’s testimony. When he said he didn’t have one, one of the men told him: “You Jews have enough money to buy some.”
The Arab men then cornered the man against the wall of the train car, but he escaped. The men pursued him but were blocked by other passengers.
Jews make up less than one percent of the French population, were they were targets of most of the documented racist hate crimes 2019. The French Interior Ministry published the data last month in a report that counted 687 anti-Semitic incidents last year out of a total of 1,142 racist hate crimes.
The post Paris metro passengers interrupt anti-Jewish harassment appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
