Amid growing nationalist tensions in the new nation of Slovakia, the country’s chief and only rabbi was attacked in broad daylight by two people yelling “Juden raus!” — an epithet meaning “Jews out!” used widely by the Nazis.
Rabbi Baruch Mayers, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen, was assaulted at noon Sunday in the Slovak capital of Bratislava.
He was reported to be in good physical condition but mentally agitated.
Mayers, a native of New Jersey, took up the new post in the Slovak capital of Bratislava in April, setting up a synagogue, kosher kitchen and study groups.
Leslie Keller, president of the East European Section of the World Jewish Congress currently in Budapest, sent a letter to the Slovak charge d’affaires in the Hungarian capital expressing shock at the attack on the rabbi.
He asked the official, William Roth, “to call on members of your government concerned in such affairs to take the necessary measures in order to avoid similar incidents and to ensure in the future the personal safety of the chief rabbi.”
Meanwhile, Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, in Vienna, accused Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar of pro-Nazi sentiments after Meciar made belittling comments about Gypsies.
His remarks were publicized by the Czech news agency, CTK, but not by the Slovak media.
Slovakia split from Czechoslovakia in January to form its own nation.
Anti-Gypsy and anti-Semitic sentiments, suppressed under communist rule, have resurfaced in the Slovak republic since the 1989 “velvet revolution” that led to the establishment of democracy in Czechoslovakia.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
