
A Jewish teacher in Paris was brutally assaulted Thursday while leaving a Kosher restaurant in the city’s 19th arrondissement.
The man, identified as K. Richard, was beaten, cursed, had his nose broken, and a swastika drawn on his bare chest. Richard was wearing a kippah — a traditional skullcap worn by religious Jewish men — at the time of the attack.
The incident was reported by the Bureau for National Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA). BNVCA president Sammy Ghozlan wrote, “They pressed him to the wall and hit his face, around the eyes and on his chest…One of the perpetrators opened the victim’s shirt and with a black marker drew a swastika on the man’s bare chest.”
The victim told police that his assailants, three in all, were in their twenties, and of North African descent. They called him “dirty Jew” in French and shouted “death to Jews.” They also yelled in Arabic, but the victim did not understand what they said.
Richard’s cries for help drew the attention of a passerby, who came to his assistance. His attackers fled.
Richard was treated in hospital for a broken nose and lacerations following the attack. This incident is only the most recent in a spate of anti-Semitic crimes in France.