German Jewish groups demand action after attacks

German Jews joined forces with civil society groups to sound the alarm over attacks on Jews following another incident in Berlin this weekend.

A dozen people were arrested in Berlin on suspicion of having beaten a Syrian Jew wearing a Star of David chain on Friday night

. The attack, which injured the head of the man, took place at the Hackescher Markt. East Berlin area which is popular with tourists. Police say the 25-year-old Syrian asked one of the detainees to light him for his cigarette, after which the fight began.

The 10 arrested were all between the ages of 15 and 25; six of them would be Syrian nationals, three Germans and the nationality of the other is not clear. Three of the alleged perpetrators were women.

One of the attackers snatched the chain from the neck of the man and made anti-Semitic remarks. When the man escaped, he was pursued by a group, knocked to the ground and beaten and kicked. The attack came to an end only after the intervention of pbaders-by and prompted German Jewish groups to call on local and federal authorities to take stronger action against anti-Semitism .

Antisemitism

"I expect the government to take anti-Semitism seriously," said Lala Süsskind, president of the Jewish Forum for Democracy and Anti-Semitism (JFDA), his manifesto Monday in Berlin

The group wants all the state-funded organizations in Germany to make an explicit audience. statement rejecting anti-Semitism. This move is seen as a challenge for a new department of Islamic theology at a Berlin university, backed by Muslim groups who refused to condemn the annual Muslim protests in Berlin calling for the end of Israel.

The JFDA warned Monday in its statement that relativising antisemitism among some German Muslims – and among newcomers to refugees – was viewed by victims of anti-Jewish attacks as an additional slap. In its statement, the organization added that the anti-Semitic attacks were "always a violation of human dignity" and that Germany's reaction to such attacks was a "litmus test for German democracy after Shoah "

. have seen a series of highly publicized anti-Jewish incidents in the streets of Berlin and in schools.

On Saturday, the owner of an Israeli restaurant in Berlin made public a series of death threats against him since a pbader-by made anti-Semitism. Seven months after this attack, filmed and put online, restaurateur Yorai Feinberg said that Berlin prosecutors had not yet laid charges against the author of the bombing.