February 15, 2013

(JTA) — French police arrested two men in connection with recent anti-Semitic attacks near Marseille.

One of the suspects in the attacks in Aix en Provence, a Tunisian national without a visa, was placed in a detention center, according to a Feb. 14 statement by SPCJ, the security affiliate of France’s Jewish communities, SPCJ.

The first of the two incidents was on Jan. 28, when a group of 15 men assembled outside a synagogue in the town.

One of the men hurled a rock at the synagogue and shouted “Allahu Akbar” and political slogans about “Palestine” “in a threatening way,” SPCJ said in its report of the incident. 

The suspects were arrested shortly after the second incident on Feb 2., when two men approached the synagogue during an event attended by the Israeli consul.

They shouted: “dirty Jew” at an SPCJ guard and profanities in Arabic and ran away when guards approached. The suspects were arrested after SPCJ informed police about the incident. 

In a third incident, not believed to be connected with the suspects, two vagabonds on Jan. 29 urinated on a Jewish school adjacent to a synagogue. Interrupted by the guard, they said, “There’s no one here but Jews, it smells like Jews here” and ran away, SPCJ reported. 

On Feb. 4, a group of men robbed a Jewish 20-year-old and beat him near Marseille’s main railway station after noticing he was wearing a Star of David. Police defined the incident as anti-Semitic.

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