Non-Jewish woman suffers anti-Semitic attack in Uruguay

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A non-Jewish Uruguayan woman was physically attacked in Montevideo by a man who allegedly yelled anti-Semitic slurs at her.

Mirta suffered injuries to her face and body after being assaulted Saturday in the Punta Carretas neighborhood, the local TV channel Subrayado reported, without giving the victim’s surname. Some clients of a nearby ice cream parlor came out to defend her.

The attack occurred on the street near the building Mirta has been working in as a housemaid for eight years.

“He said he doesn’t like housemaids because we are servants and walk the dogs of the Jews and he will kill us all,” she told the local media.

The victim, who also had some teeth broken, filed a report with police calling it an anti-Semitic attack. She had been threatened several times previously by the same man and filed a police report each time, according to the latest report. Mirta said she is concerned that he will attack other people.

“He insulted me and said that all the Jews have to die,” she said. “I am afraid because he remains unpunished. When someone passes, he yells, throw stones. I’m scared.”

Roberto Cyjon, the former president of the country’s umbrella Jewish organization, the Israelite Central Committee, said in a statement that the Jewish community should be “alert and concerned.”

“Besides the outrage it provokes, I believe it may encourage other anti-Semitic attacks, not necessarily physical aggression,” he wrote. “This episode of violence under the pathetic anti-Semitic reason of working at a Jewish household should keep us alert and concerned. Although it is absurd, it is not trivial.”

On March 8, a Jewish businessman was killed near his store in the Uruguayan small town of Paysandu. The killer reportedly yelled “God is great” in Arabic while stabbing David Fremd, 55, in the back 10 times, and later declared that he “followed Allah’s order.”

Uruguay is home to some 12,000 Jews out of a population of 3.4 million.