Jewish teen assaulted near Paris

A Jewish young man reports being assaulted near Paris by three black men, who hit him and called him a “dirty Jew.”

The incident occurs Tuesday in Montreuil, an eastern suburb of Paris, according to a report Thursday by the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism — a French watchdog group known locally by the initials BNVCA.

The alleged victim, identified as 18-year-old Ruben Am, says he was approached by a tall African man near Montreuil’s Robespierre metro station, who asked him for a lighter. Then the man asked Am about his religion. Feeling threatened, Am said he was a Moroccan Muslim. But his interlocutor reportedly punched him in the face, saying he could not be Muslim as he attended the Daniel Mayer Jewish vocational school.

He also called Am a dirty Jew, according to the report, and was joined by two other men, also African, who covered their faces with their hoodies. The three then fled the scene. The victim sustained several cuts to his face from the hits, BNVCA President Sammy Ghozlan writes.

— JTA