Strasbourg – An Orthodox Jew was injured after being attacked on Sunday in the center of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin). A man knocked him off his bike before fleeing.
The facts occurred in the middle of the morning in this city where a large Jewish community resides. The victim, a man in his forties, was going shopping by bicycle, according to a press release from his lawyer, Me Raphaël Nisand. He ‘was dressed in traditional Orthodox Jewish attire … a white shirt and black trousers,’ and the ‘tsitsit’, the fringes worn in the corner of clothing by religious Jews, protruded from his costume, according to the council. His client’s yarmulke was hidden by his bicycle helmet.
A “young man”, who was also riding a bicycle on the cycle path, would then have gone up to him and would have twice tried to knock him down. “On the third attempt, (…) the attacker voluntarily lay down with his bike on the victim”, causing her to fall heavily, before fleeing, according to Me Nisand.
His client, “seriously injured”, suffered in particular from multiple fractures (nose, ribs, arms and left orbit). “Several operations are planned” in the week, he added.
A CCTV camera from a nearby Jewish school captured a “clear and sharp image of the attacker” which was provided to the police, further affirms Mr. Nisand, who denounces an “anti-Semitic attack”. A complaint has been filed and the flagrante investigation is still ongoing.
In a “unanimous reaction”, the city council of Strasbourg condemned “with the greatest firmness the violent attack on a person of the Jewish faith”. “We send all our support and full solidarity to the victim”, indicated in a press release the municipal council of Strasbourg, a city led by the ecologist Jeanne Barseghian. “We express our deep concern about the anti-Semitic acts and attacks committed in our city. These acts of hatred and gratuitous violence must be punished by the courts with the greatest firmness,” added the municipal council.
”To shut up ? Never. Denounce? Still. Support the Jewish community? Obvious. Fight against antiדemitism? A duty,” said Jean Rottner, LR president of the Grand Est region, on Twitter.
