Israeli tourist attacked in Berlin for speaking Hebrew
The Israeli was speaking with three other men, who were in the same age group, in Hebrew when he was attacked in front of a night club.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALA man wearing a yarmulke looks at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.(photo credit: REUTERS)
A 21-year-old Israeli tourist was attacked and punched in the face as he was speaking Hebrew in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, police authorities reported. The police termed the assault, as "Bodily injury with antisemitic background," in the official police notice reviewed by The Jerusalem Post.The Israeli was speaking with three other men, who were in the same age group, in Hebrew when he was attacked in front of a night club. The suspect overheard the man and attacked him in the early hours of Monday morning, resulting in facial injuries. The perpetrator fled after the attack but was described by the Israeli as having an Arab-looking appearance. Police authorities launched an investigation. Germany's interior ministry noted that there have been four antisemitic offenses every day in the federal republic since 2001.In August, two men spat on Berlin Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal and insulted him in Arabic. In the same month, a man and a woman spat on a rabbi and his two sons in the Bavarian capital of Munich and termed them "Sh...T Jews." According to a federal parliament report on antisemitism, 40% of Germans hold modern antisemitic views.US ambassador Richard Grenell urged Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday to outlaw the antisemitic terrorist organization Hezbollah in Germany, whose 1,050 members spread antisemitic ideology. The nearly 100,000 member Central Council of Jews in Germany called on Merkel in May to ban Hezbollah. Merkel rebuffed the Central Council of Jews.
