(JTA) – Two Jewish teenagers were assaulted in separate incidents on the streets of Paris in what police are investigating as possible hate crimes.
A male victim, 19, was attacked Wednesday at about 5 p.m. by three men in Paris’ 19th District after noticing that one of the assailants was trying to steal his wallet and computer from his bag, the Le Point newspaper reported last Friday.
Upon seeing that the man was wearing a kippah, the alleged pickpocket and two accomplices shoved the Jewish man to the floor and kicked him repeatedly in the back at a bus stop and ran away, according to the report, which is based on the alleged victim’s complaint to police.
The incident involving the teenage girl occurred the previous day in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris with a sizable Jewish community, Le Point reported. She was hit forcefully in the back by a man who spoke Arabic to her. She did not understand what the man said, she told police. The man, whom the alleged victim did not recognize, pointed his finger at her and made gestures evocative of firing a handgun, she said.
The alleged victim, a student at a Jewish high school for girls, was wearing that institution’s uniform when the attack occurred, the report said. Her friend was walking alongside her and witnessed the exchange. Both were wearing clothes that identified them as Jews, according to the report.
Separately, unidentified individuals wrote “Long live Palestine, Jews out” on a Paris synagogue. Worshipers discovered the graffiti on Saturday on the wall of a synagogue in Les Lilas, an eastern suburb of Paris bordering on the 19th District, the Le Monde Juif news website reported.
In another incident, the word “Jews” was spray-painted on a shop display in a suburb of Dusseldorf, Germany.
The graffiti in Germany, which is reminiscent of the marking of Jewish-owned shops by the Nazis, was found in Ratingen last month, north of Dusseldorf, the Ratinger Zeitung reported. The report did not say whether the shop targeted was indeed owned by Jews.
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