A Jewish man was assaulted Friday morning in Brooklyn, New York, by two masked suspects as he was on his way to synagogue.

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A video posted on social media by Shomrim, a private Orthodox Jewish safety patrol, shows two suspects approach the Jewish man, brutally beat him and steal his tefillin, after which they immediately fled the scene.

FACE OF EVIL: After hours of following their steps via camera footage, our volunteers obtained video of the faces of the pair - wanted for this morning's vicious assault/robbery on New York Ave. If you recognize them, contact @NYPD63Pct & #Shomrim 718-338-9797. @NYPDHateCrimes https://t.co/iSh5oegt1P pic.twitter.com/5HSuZgUrq4

— Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol (@FlatbushShomrim) July 16, 2021

Local police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. Shomrim is offering a $1,000 award for information leading to an arrest.

Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Hagoel condemned the viscous attack and called on the government to take action.

"Antisemitism aims to instill fear in Jews by trying to destroy them. The incident, in which a Jew was humiliated and beaten in the streets of Brooklyn, on his way to synagogue, clearly reflects the need to recalculate a new route.

"The US, our closest ally in the world, has in recent years seen a record spike in antisemitic assaults, both in their severity and frequency. I am once again calling on the US administration to recalculate its route, and put an end to the growing phenomenon. The incident is just another reminded for those who have might have forgotten that antisemitism is directed against the Jews."

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Los Angeles police on Saturday announced the arrest of a suspect in an alleged attack by a pro-Palestinian group on Jewish men outside a restaurant earlier in the week.

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A police statement, which did not identify the man, said he was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon late Friday at a residence outside the city of Los Angeles with assistance from a US Marshals Service task force.

Increased bail was requested "due to the crime being motivated by hatred," the statement said.

"The male is one of the primary suspects in the assault and beating of several men who were outside of a restaurant in the evening hours in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 18, 2021," it said.

The violence, recorded on video, occurred when a car caravan flying Palestinian flags stopped near a restaurant where diners were eating at outdoor tables. Witnesses told news media that people in the caravan threw bottles and chanted "death to Jews" and "free Palestine," and men got out of the vehicles and began asking who was Jewish. A brawl erupted when two diners said they were Jewish.

Civic and faith leaders have condemned the incident.

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The New York Police Department announced on Monday the establishment of a Hate Crime Review Panel that will be led by a diverse group of community leaders to help officers combat hate-motivated violence.

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Five civilian leaders have also joined the panel, including Devorah Halberstam, co-founder and director of external affairs at the Jewish Children's Museum in Brooklyn. Halberstam's 16-year-old son, Ari, was shot and killed in a 1994 anti-Semitic attack on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The other community leaders on the panel are Fred Teng, president of the America China Public Affairs Institute; Pia Raymond, author, professor and social worker; Ed Powell, president of Brooklyn's 70th Precinct Community Council; and David Warren, a member of Manhattan Community Board 4, a board member of the pedestrian safety coalition ChekPeds and an active member of OutCycling, a non-profit LGBTQ cycling network.

The NYPD said in a statement that "collectively, our panelists represent decades of deep knowledge and vital experience. They will assess circumstances that present challenges in establishing whether a victim's actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation were motivating factors in possible hate crime. Their contribution will enhance the department's work and improve service to all New Yorkers."

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Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said, "Our continuing partnerships with the community remain the cornerstone of our policing philosophy. Whether teaming our cops up with the community to clean graffiti, partnering with esteemed advisors to reimagine policing for the 21st century or ensuring an independent assessment of all potential hate crimes, we are always striving to make the department fairer, stronger and more effective."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Police in Norrkoping, Sweden, are investigating after someone left a hate-filled message and a group of dolls hanging outside a synagogue there on the first day of Passover, March 28.

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According to a post from the Anti-Defamation League, the note referred to Passover being a "Jewish celebration of killing thousands of Egyptian children." The ADL also posted a photo of some of the hanging dolls with what appeared to be red paint or markers on them.

The ADL also noted that the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement posted the incident, including a photo taken at night that showed even more dolls hanging outside. In its tweet, the ADL said: "We urge the police to take quick action against such intimidation and harassment."

A local news website reported that police would patrol the synagogue during the remainder of the holiday, which continues through Sunday night. Norrkoping is about 100 miles south of Stockholm, and according to the European Jewish Congress, has a small Jewish community.

A disturbing incident on the first night of Passover, shared with ADL by the Swedish Jewish community. Dolls were hung near the synagogue in Norrkoping with a message about Passover being a Jewish celebration of killing thousands of Egyptian children pic.twitter.com/DLT2LUgY5k

— ADL (@ADL) March 30, 2021

This week's incident comes just two months after anti-Semitic flyers and cans that said "GiftGas! Zyklon" were found in the city; that discovery was made on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Swedish, like many other Western countries, has seen an uptick in anti-Semitism. Last year, several Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress, Jewish Central Council of Sweden and the Central Council of Jewish Congregations in Finland, urged the Swedish government to act against racism and anti-Semitism.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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A video posted on social media by the Union of Jewish Students of France shows the restaurant in the 19th district of Paris with anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas painted on the wall, broken windows and destroyed tables and chairs.

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The probe was opened Friday into "racist degradations," the prosecutors said.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo condemned "with the utmost firmness this hateful act of anti-Semitic vandalism." She expressed on Twitter her "full support" to the Jewish community. "We will not tolerate this," she said.

Horreur et indignation face au saccage antisémite d'un restaurant casher rue Manin dans le 19e.
« Hitler avait raison » sur les murs d'un restaurant en France en 2020.
5 ans après les attentats, l'insécurité des juifs de France est à son paroxysme. pic.twitter.com/sGt5yr7nii

— UEJF (@uejf) October 2, 2020

Prime Minister Jean Castex also tweeted his "solidarity with our Jewish compatriots," saying he shares their "emotion and outrage."

"The Republic will stand united against hatred and will fight against those who promote it," he said.

French police registered 687 anti-Semitic acts last year, from vandalism to threats to physical attacks – a 27% rise from the year before. Reports of anti-Muslim and other racist acts also rose.

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Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited a synagogue Sunday ahead of the evening start of Yom Kippur and said more than 7,000 police and soldiers were protecting Jewish services this weekend. France has Europe's largest Jewish community.

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"I came to assure ... members of France's Jewish community of the protection of the state," Darmanin told reporters. "Because we know that Jews are particularly targeted by Islamist attacks and we should obviously protect them."

Darmanin defended authorities' handling of a double stabbing Friday outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying intelligence services have prevented 32 potential terrorist attacks over the past three years.

Coordinated Islamic extremist attacks on Charlie Hebdo's Paris newsroom and a kosher supermarket in January 2015 killed 17 people, and Friday's stabbing came as the trial into those attacks is under way.

The suspected assailant in Friday's attack told investigators that he was targeting Charlie Hebdo after it recently republished caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, according to a judicial official. Two people were wounded and several suspects are in custody.

One suspect arrested after Friday's stabbing was later released – and his lawyer says that he had tried to stop the assailant and should be considered a hero instead.

Lawyer Lucie Simon told France-Info that her client, a 33-year-old French resident from Algeria identified only as Youssef, chased the attacker. Simon said the assailant threatened Youssef with a kitchen cleaver, so Youssef fled and told police – who promptly arrested him.

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A reporter for the right-wing news site Townhall posted a video of a Black Lives Matter activist spray-painting the words "Free Palestine" on the driveway of Beth Hillel Temple, a Reform synagogue.

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The vandalism took place amid the protests and riots that erupted Kenosha after a Black man, Jacob Blake, 29, was shot seven times in the back by police on Sunday during an arrest. Blake is in critical condition, his lawyer told NPR.

Rabbi Dena Feingold of Beth Hillel said she felt the vandalism wasn't representative of the protests.

"We are advocates for justice for all oppressed people. We support the movement for black lives, and we know that one person with a can of spray paint does not speak for an entire cause," Feingold said.

"We pray for Jacob Blake and decry the vigilante murders that took place a block from our synagogue two nights ago. Our call is for justice and peace in our community and around the world," the rabbi said.

On Wednesday, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation expressed solidarity with the black community and called for unity.

"We believe that all must stand united to rid our communities of systemic racism and its toxic effects because it puts black lives at risk, including black and brown Jewish lives, and harms us all," the organization told JNS in a statement.

"Our pursuit of justice is guided by the Jewish principle of pikuah nefesh, which places the sanctity of life above all else. Government policies, practices and policing must be guided by this shared value."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The Jewish owner of the Morgen Wird Besser pub in Berlin's Lichtenberg neighborhood said that for some years, he has been the target of harassment and threats by anti-Semitic neighbors and neo-Nazis. German media reported that local police had confirmed that they were investigating the arson as a possible anti-Semitic hate crime.

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On Wednesday, Jews and Israelis in Berlin visited the pub in a show of support for the owner and as a protest against growing anti-Semitism in the country.

Rabbi of Dresden Akiva Weingarten discussed the incident, saying, "When the news arrived about a fire in a Berlin bar that was owned by Jews – what appears to be a hate crime and an act by members of the far Right – I couldn't not connect it to our blood-soaked history here.

"Jewish shops in Germany being burned awakens horrible memories of our past here in the heart of every Jew," Weingarten said, adding that he believed that the German authorities would find the perpetrators and try them in court.

"Especially now, when the trial of the killer from Halle is under way, we expect the words 'Never Again' to not remain hollow," Weingarten said.

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The words "Satanic Jews Out!" were spray-painted on the Fallen Aviators Monument in Karaiskaki Square in Athens, along with Christian symbols.

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"Unfortunately, bigotry and incitement against the Jewish people has also reached the memorial sites of the Greek Air Force, falsely pointing the finger and blaming the Jews," said  vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Hagoel after the vandalism was reported.

"We have seen how such incidents can lead to murder," Hagoel added.

The WZO vice chair issued a call to the Greek government and city authorities of Athens to investigate and prosecute the vandals, and urged them to ensure the safety of the Greek Jewish community.

Earlier this month, a monument to Holocaust victims that stands in the northern Greek city of Trikala – once one of the country's oldest Jewish communities – was vandalized, and the exterior of the city's synagogue was defaced with slogans such as "Jewish snakes out."

The Trikala vandals stole the Star of David from the monument and tore down the fence that surrounds it.

The monument was vandalized twice in 2019.

Part of this article was reprinted with permission from JNS.

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A 16-year-old was arrested and the police are searching for other suspects involved in the attack.

Because there is no section of the penal code that specifies hatred of LGBTQ persons as a motivating factor in an assault, the police have detained the teen on charges of a racially motivated assault.

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