From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 5, 2024
Chilean woman probed for hate crime after accosting Jewish store owner in Brazil
Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter
A video of woman shouting “Zionist baby killer” at the Jewish owner of a shop in Brazil is evidence in a criminal investigation of racist intimidation, local police say.
The assailant, a citizen of Chile, is under orders not to leave Brazil pending the investigation of the incident Friday in Arraial d’Ajuda, a police spokesperson tells the news site uol.com.br.
In the video, which has gone viral on social networks, the assailant screams at the Jewish shop owner, Herta Breslauer, 54, in her souvenir shop near the beachfront of the resort city situated about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northeast of Rio de Janeiro.
The assailant calls the shop owner in Portuguese a “whore” and says: “I’ll get you” as the victim and a shirtless man repeatedly tell the woman to stop. The man drags the woman away from the store, which is strewn with broken produce.
Police tell uol that the assailant attributes her behavior to an unspecified prescription drug. The two women know each other from before the altercation, according to the police source.
In a filmed statement taken outside a police station Friday, Breslauer says the assailant beat her “simply because I’m Jewish.” Police tell uol they have no evidence of a beating.
The incident is causing alarm and anger among Brazilian Jews, who, like many other Jewish communities around the world, are experiencing an increase in antisemitic rhetoric in connection with Israel’s war with Hamas.
Rony Meisler, a Jewish business mogul and founder of the Reserva sustainable clothing line, offers on Instagram to reimburse the woman for the damages to her store. He blames the surge of antisemitism on “party political ideology” in Brazil, whose President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in December accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” in Gaza.
