BERLIN—A 25-year-man wearing a kippah was attacked and insulted in front of the Potsdam Central Station, daily Berliner Zeitung reported.
The city of Potsdam is located close to Berlin.
The 25-year-old student told German press agency DPA that he wears the Kippa daily from family tradition. “When I got off the tram at the main station, I noticed shadows behind me,” he reported.
The next moment two men started to spit on him before shouting anti-Semitic insults and threatening him with gestures. He then alerted the federal police.
The two agressors have been swiftly identified as Syrian nationals, said a spokesman for the Brandenburg police.
Earlier this year, a leading German antisemitism watchdog group reported that anti-Jewish violence in Berlin jumped over 150% last year. since 2017; surge in threats, attacks and other incidents attributed to far-right
The report by the Berlin-based Research and Information Center for anti-Semitism (RIAS) said that 1,083 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in the city in 2018, compared to the 951 incidents reported the year before.
Over half of the incidents targeted what the report categorized as identifiably “Jewish/Israeli” organizations, individuals or activists in Berlin.
The report noted a sharp rise in physical assaults targeting Jews in the city, from 18 attacks reported in 2017 to 48 in 2018. Threats made against the Berlin Jewish community nearly doubled in the last year, with 46 incidents reported in 2018, compared with 26 in 2017.