Jewish Student Attacked Outside Hamburg Synagogue in Anti-Semitic Act

"Today's attacker must be held responsible as must all who engage in any expressions of hate or intolerance," he said.

Avichai Apel, president of the Germany conference of Orthodox rabbis, described the latest attack as a fresh shock for the Jewish community in Germany.

The Jewish community in Hamburg was celebrating Sukkot, also known as the Feast of the Tabernacles, and the synagogue was full of believers at the time of the attack, according to media reports.

Last year's attack on the synagogue in Halle came on October 9 during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. A neo-Nazi suspect is currently on trial for the crime.

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Only last month, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of her shame over rising anti-Semitism in Germany, even as the Jewish community warned the coronavirus was acting as a catalyst stirring up anti-Jewish hatred.

Anti-Semitic crimes have increased steadily in Germany in recent years with 2,032 anti-Semitic offenses recorded in 2019, up 13 percent on the previous year.

Some six million European Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during World War II.

Germany is now home to the third-largest Jewish population in western Europe, largely due to an influx of around 200,000 Jews following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

(Writer & Editor: YAP/JJ/HAR/MFP, Agence France-Presse)  

Source: http://u.afp.com/3zXx