A fervently Orthodox Austrian Jew who embraced Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad reportedly was assaulted by a group of Israelis in Poland.
Ma’ariv reported Monday that Moshe Aryeh Friedman, who attended the Holocaust denial conference hosted by Ahmadinejad in Tehran in December, was
spotted while visiting the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps over the weekend. A group of fervently Orthodox Jews from Israel also touring the
sites set upon Friedman, who was born and raised in Monsey, N.Y. “We gave him a good beating, the kind we have not given in a
long time,” a member of the Israeli group, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, told Ma’ariv.
“We took off his coat and hat, so he would not look like a Jew.” According
to the newspaper, Meshi-Zahav, who is one of the founders of the Israeli
volunteer emergency service ZAKA, was later honored with a special Torah
reading in the synagogue.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.