2 arrested for beating of Jewish teen in Manchester

Two teens were arrested early Thursday morning in connection with the beating of a Jewish teenager in Manchester that left him in a coma.

The teens were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and violent disorder. Manchester police are also calling on witnesses to the attack, which took place at a train station near Heaton Park, located in the heart of north Manchester’s Jewish community, to come forward.

The 17-year-old victim, identified as Moshe Fuerst, was hospitalized after the attack with serious head injuries. He came out of a coma on Monday night after suffering bleeding on his brain.

He was one of four young Orthodox Jewish people assaulted at night on September 5 by three men at a train station near Heaton Park, located in the heart of north Manchester’s Jewish community.

“These arrests demonstrate that the police are taking this incident very seriously which I hope gives reassurance to the Jewish community and the wider public,” Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd told the London-based Jewish Chronicle.

Lloyd said that the police are treating the attack as a hate crime, adding: “I want to make clear that all reports of hate crime will be dealt with seriously. We have seen a significant rise in reports of hate crime and in particular anti-Semitic hate crime reports, which have risen by more than half over the past year.”

Fuerst’s father Michael said the attack was carried out by a gang of “non-Jewish boys who were drunk” and who took “great joy, I’m sure, from the fact that they were beating up a Jewish kid.”

The attack came as the London Metropolitan Police reported a sharp increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the 12 months preceding July 2015.