(JTA) — Two teens have been arrested in connection with the beating of a Jewish teenager in England that left him in a coma.
The teens were arrested early Thursday morning on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and violent disorder in the attack at a train station in the heart of north Manchester’s Jewish community. Manchester police also are calling on witnesses to the attack to come forward.
The 17-year-old victim, identified as Moshe Fuerst, was hospitalized after the attack with serious head injuries. He came out of a coma on Monday night. He was one of four young Orthodox Jews assaulted on the night of Sept. 5 by three men at the train station near Heaton Park.
“These arrests demonstrate that the police are taking this incident very seriously, which I hope gives reassurance to the Jewish community and the wider public,” Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd told the London-based Jewish Chronicle.
Lloyd said that the police are treating the attack as a hate crime.
“We have seen a significant rise in reports of hate crime and in particular anti-Semitic hate crime reports, which have risen by more than half over the past year,” he said.
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