Two arrested for beating of Jewish teen in England

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Two teens have been arrested in connection with the beating of a Jewish teenager that left him in a coma.

The teens were arrested early Thursday morning on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm and violent disorder. Manchester police also are calling on witnesses to the attack, which took place at a train station near Heaton Park, located in the heart of north Manchester’s Jewish community, to come forward.

The 17-year-old victim, identified as Moshe Fuerst, was hospitalized after the attack with serious head injuries. He came out of a coma on Monday night after suffering bleeding on his brain. He was one of four young Orthodox Jewish people assaulted at night on Sept. 5 by three men at a train station near Heaton Park, located in the heart of north Manchester’s Jewish community.

“These arrests demonstrate that the police are taking this incident very seriously which I hope gives reassurance to the Jewish community and the wider public,”  Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd told the London-based Jewish Chronicle.

Lloyd that the police are treating the attack as a hate crime, adding: “I want to make clear that all reports of hate crime will be dealt with seriously. We have seen a significant rise in reports of hate crime and in particular anti-Semitic hate crime reports, which have risen by more than half over the past year.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.