A French rabbi reported being physically attacked for the second time in just a week, underscoring a disturbing increase in hate crimes sweeping across the country. Speaking with Reuters, Rabbi Elie Lemmel described the assault as part of a troubling pattern of antisemitic violence.
Rabbi Lemmel recounted that the incident took place while he was sitting peacefully at a café in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris. Without warning, someone struck him on the head with a chair.
“I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing,” he says.
At first, he couldn’t make sense of what had happened. He thought an object might have fallen on him from above before realizing the painful truth—it had been a deliberate attack.
“Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it’s such a shame,” he says.
This latest assault came just days after another disturbing episode in Deauville, a town in Normandy. There, Rabbi Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by a stranger.
While he had previously endured verbal harassment and hostile glances, Rabbi Lemmel said that physical violence was a new and alarming escalation.
Rabbi Lemmel says he was used to “not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground,” but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks.
The public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre confirmed that a criminal inquiry had been launched into the Neuilly assault, classifying it as aggravated violence. Authorities have detained a suspect for questioning, though no additional information has been released at this time.
“This act sickens us,” former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal writes on X regarding Friday’s incident involving Lemmel. “Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society.”
Just last week, five Jewish centers in Paris were defaced with green paint, another example of the rising tide of antisemitism.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the anti-Semitic attack that targeted a rabbi in Neuilly today. Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a post on X.
Macron will get what’s coming to him really soon.
You mean the clone. The real one is gone.