Top Austrian politicians have spoken out after the head of Graz’s Jewish community was attacked with a wooden club. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said authorities would “do everything to bring the perpetrator to justice.” Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer on Sunday ordered increased police surveillance of all Jewish institutions after a Jewish leader Elie Rosen was attacked. Rosen, Jewish community president in Austria’s second-largest city, Graz, in Styria province, told Germany’s dpa news agency the silent assailant first swung a wooden club, without striking him on Saturday evening, and then struck his car heavily as he drove away. The attack took place a day after the windows of Graz’s synagogue were damaged.
Last Tuesday night, slogans were sprayed on the synagogue and nearby community center, said Rosen, adding Saturday’s assailant resembled a person in previous surveillance footage. On Twitter, Chancellor Kurz said he was shocked over the incidents and insisted “everything” would be done to bring the elusive perpetrator to justice. Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen tweeted: “Hatred of Jews and Anti-Semitism has no place in our society.”
Austrian police said connections in the recent Graz incidents “seem obvious.” A report published last May by the Jewish Community of Vienna and Forum against Antisemitism itemized 550 anti-Semitic incidents across Austria in 2019. That represented a 9.5% increase in incidents recorded in 2017. Vienna’s Catholic Archbishop Christoph Schönborn tweeted: “The repeated attacks on the Graz Synagogue shocks me. My first thought is for Mr. Rosen.”
Source: DW
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