Attacks on the Jewish community of Germany continue as Berlin police investigate the second anti-Semitic attack in days. On Tuesday, five youths aged 12 to 15 sexually assaulted a 68-year-old grandfather on his way to visit the Putlitzbrücke Holocaust memorial in Berlin.
Authorities say the suspects shouted anti-Semitic slurs during the attack.
Just one day before, police say another Jewish person was assaulted on a Berlin subway.
“An entering passenger boarded and punched him in the face with his fist and hurled antisemitic insults towards him,” Berlin police said in a statement about the Monday attack.
The Times of Israel reports that police are also investigating neo-Nazi graffiti vandalism after someone wrote “Heil Hitler” on a storefront in the Köpenick section of Berlin.
VIDEO: Young Jewish man films his Syrian refugee attacker:
These incidents are part of a dangerous rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Germany which mirrors similar attacks in other Liberal European nations such as France, England and Belgium.
According to the Interior Ministry, 1,799 anti-Semitic offenses were recorded in 2018, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the previous year. Jewish organizations said many offenses went unreported.
European news reports on increasing attacks by Muslim refugees:
“We have seen a rise in anti-Semitism for years now, we see it across society. We see it on the right, on the left, in Islamism, and in mainstream society,” Remko Leemhuis, acting director of the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, told the Wall Street Journal. “Right now it feels like it’s coming from everywhere.”
He made the comments after an attack on a synagogue in Halle in October left two people dead.
Germany responded to the rise in anti-Semitism by appointing a commissioner in charge of combating anti-Semitism in 2018. Instead of stopping actual attacks, the commissioner is pushing to censor online speech.
The weak response has many scratching their heads with incredulity while German authorities fail to make real changes with prison sentences.
“We consider any anti-Semitic incident as targeting the Jews and non-Jews of Europe,” German Ambassador to Israel Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer said at a conference in Jerusalem in November. “There is zero tolerance for racism, anti-Semitism, and hatred in Germany.”
–Dwight Widaman and wire services
