German police probe Yom Kippur threats against Jewish official

Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, says he was threatened after leaving synagogue with his family

BERLIN — German police are investigating a claim that a senior Jewish official was threatened by a man in the street shortly after visiting a Berlin synagogue with his family.

A Berlin police spokesman says Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, alleges the incident happened Wednesday on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

Police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said Friday that both Kramer, who was carrying a gun at the time, and the unnamed man have filed criminal complaints that the other threatened them.

In August, Rabbi Daniel Alter was hospitalized after being beaten on the head by four men of apparent Arab origin. Alter, 53, was wearing a skullcap while was walking in Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg district with his 6-year-old daughter when a youth approached him with the question, “Are you a Jew?” Three other young men joined the attacker, hitting the Jewish man several times and eventually breaking his cheekbone. The attackers then insulted Alter and his religion and issued death threats to his daughter.