Foreigner assaulted in Berlin in alleged anti-Semitic incident

Two unidentified men in Berlin hit a Dutch national and then kicked him after asking him if he is Jewish, a German newspaper reported.

The incident happened Saturday morning in the Spandauer Vorstadt area in Berlin, Der Tagesspiegel reported.

The 31-year-old alleged victim, who is not Jewish and living in Berlin, asked the two men why they wanted to know if he was Jewish after they asked him this on the street. Then they assaulted him, the report said.

The two alleged perpetrators left the scene of the incident in a taxi.

In Germany, where more than 200,000 Jews live, authorities recorded in 2017 a total of 1,453 anti-Semitic incidents, including 32 assaults. Additionally, 160 cases of property damage in were reported that year against Jewish targets or featuring anti-Semitic characteristics.

Most incidents were linked to far-right hate but concern about anti-Semitism is high in Germany, with some Jewish community leaders and politicians warning that anti-Jewish and extreme anti-Zionist attitudes among more than a million new refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are a ticking time bomb.

In January, the Bundestag voted to establish a commissioner to deal with anti-Semitism in the country, motivated in part by such concerns. Pau’s Left Party had abstained from the vote, saying the proposal overemphasized immigrants as a source of the problem.