Jewish Teacher Beaten by Swastika Attackers in Paris
A Jewish teacher from Paris told police that three men assaulted and cursed him in Arabic before drawing a swastika on his chest.
The attack occurred on Thursday night, according to a report by the Drancy-based Bureau for National Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, a watchdog group known as BNVCA.
“They pressed him to the wall and hit his face, around the eyes and on his chest,” the report said. The blows broke his nose and deformed it, according to the report.
“One of the perpetrators opened the victim’s shirt and with a black marker drew a swastika on the man’s bare chest,” BNVCA president Sammy Ghozlan wrote in the BNVCA report.
The victim, who was wearing a kippah at the time of the attack, was identified as K. Richard. He was treated for a broken nose and lacerations on his face on Thursday night.
He told police that the three men whoa attacked him appeared to be of North African descent and were in their twenties. They cornered him as he was exiting a kosher restaurant on Manin Street in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, near the Gare du Nord train station.
The shouted “death to the Jews” and called him “dirty Jew” in French and also shouted insults in Arabic which Richard did not understand, the BNVCA report said.
Richard’s cries for help drew the attention of a passerby. The perpetrators fled as he approached, the report read. BNVCA has recorded a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in France in recent weeks.
The SPCJ security unit of French Jewish communities recorded 423 anti-Semitic incidents in 2013 — a 31-percent drop from the 614 incidents recorded in 2012.
But the number of incidents reported last year is still eight percent higher than in 2011, Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said earlier this month during an interview for BMFTV.
“So we are talking about a decrease, but on the contrary, there is growth. Behind the figures there is a difficult climate,” he said.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
