(JTA) — A 28-year-old man has been charged with anti-Semitic insults, causing dangerous bodily harm and assaulting a police officer after an altercation with another man on Monday night in Berlin.
It was not known whether the victim was Jewish. Sigmount Konigsberg, the Jewish community’s commissioner on anti-Semitism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he suspected that the victim was not Jewish but was “pegged as a Jew.”
According to a police report, an emergency unit was called three times on the evening of Jan. 4 to intervene in the escalating altercation. The victim, 33, was attacked in front of his apartment building by another man whom police said was trying to visit a woman who lived in the same building. The attacker reportedly made anti-Semitic insults against the resident and left the scene.
When the attacker returned, police conducted an alcohol test, established his identity and ordered him to leave. After complying, the man returned and attacked the victim, striking him on the hand with the handle of a long knife. The victim then fired pepper spray at the attacker, who dropped the knife and fled.
Officers called to the scene again arrested the man, whom they had to subdue as he was punching and kicking them. In police custody, he underwent a blood alcohol test and was released on his own recognizance.
The incident comes days after a rabbi in the city of Offenbach was targeted with anti-Semitic insults as he was returning home with his children. Witnesses called the police, who arrested the suspect, a 46-year-old man who is reportedly homeless and was under the influence of alcohol. He is now facing charges of incitement to hate and display of symbols of illegal organizations.
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