German police are looking for two men who attacked Rabbi Jan Aaron Hammel while he was walking in Berlin, Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday.
According to police, Hammel, 55, was struck in the back, as he was walking in the Charlottenburg, an affluent district of Berlin. He was of the Jewish faith and wore clothes that identified him as such. The victim went home after the attack, but later called emergency services and complained about sharp pains in his head and one leg.
Rabbi Hammel complained that before the attack, the two assailants he insulted him in Arabic.
Charlottenburg is a magnet for Berlin Jews, and is home to the city’s largest kosher supermarket.
ExBerliner reported in 207 that Israeli ex-pats are also flocking to Charlottenburg, “where they find synagogues, certified kosher markets and restaurants, as well as a secure environment and many fellow Jews.”
Well, someone took care of that one.
Eighty years after the 1938 Kristallnacht, Jewish life has become common again in Berlin, with More than 30,000 Jews living there, despite the anti-Semitism which has been growing in the German capital from one year to the next.
According to official figures, the number of anti-Semitic crimes committed in Germany increased from 1,504 in 2017 to 1,646 in 2018.