France: anti-Semitic attackers from Villeurbanne arrested

Anti-Semitic attack in Villeurbanne: the French police announced this afternoon (Wed.) that two suspects who are suspected of being involved in the event on Motzaei Shabbos, in which Jewish youngsters wearing a yarmulke were attacked with hammers and iron bands , were caught. Another central suspect is still roaming around free, and the French police are looking for him.

According to reports in the media of the country, the police arrived this morning to look for the suspects in their homes and did not find them, but during the day, when the two heard of this, they handed themselves in to the police.

The case is of three Jews, two of them being 18 and 23 years old, Talmidim of a local yeshiva, and another young girl of 24. According to the suspicion, the three were attacked by a group which counted more than ten people, most probably Moslems, who hit them with hammers and metal rods. The three were slightly wounded, hospitalized for a few hours, and after their release they placed a complaint in the police.

The French Minister of Interior has already declared that he is of the opinion that the attack was anti-Semitic.

One of those attacked, Shmuel Biton aged 22, who belongs to the Chabad kehilla, is supposed to get married this coming Sunday. His family hope that the shock and pain will pass until the day of the wedding, and that it won' t have to be postponed.

Biton's family has already encountered the anti-Semitism which rages in France – his nephew learns in the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse, in which the horrible murder of the three members of the Sandler family and Miriam Monsonego, took place.

Eli Azulay, the second victim of the event, who was hurt at the back of his head, is the son of Rabbi David Azulay, the school principal in Villeurbanne – close to which this attack took place.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!