Two students at the “Basics of the Torah” high school were attacked while waiting for a train in the suburbs of the city of Melbourne in Australia because of their Jewishness while their friend was filming the incident.
The father of one of his sons returned with a “bruised jaw and bleeding in the mouth”. He says that they tried to ask for help from passers-by who ignored them. The attackers were described as “Middle Eastern-looking teenagers who yelled at them, ‘Fucking Jews.’
The deputy director of the school, Rabbi Yossi Fromer, wrote to the parents that “one of the students was hurt in the face, after receiving anti-Semitic slurs without any provocation. Since our students look clearly Jewish (wearing a kippah), the school will work to teach the students to deal with these situations.”
The school’s principal, Rabbi Yehoshua Smoker, said: “We are very angry that two of our students were verbally and physically attacked, without provocation on their part, in a public space in Melbourne. Victoria Police have been notified. We would like to thank the CSG organization for their support in ensuring that the matter is dealt with properly and for working with the authorities the relevance, to ensure that problems like this do not happen in the future.”
CSG is an organization that works to protect Jewish life and the Jewish way of life in Australia.
Alasdair Farrell, commander of Caulfield Police Station, confirmed to the AJN that the incident was being investigated. “A group attacked the Jewish boys. One of the perpetrators attacked the boys while another friend filmed the incident. The boy was injured in a way that did not require hospital treatment. The group fled the scene on foot.”
