Police in Paris have arrested a man over the stabbing of a Jewish man on Monday night by a former friend of the victim who is said to have become “obsessed” with Jews.
According to an eyewitness, the 35-year-old victim, who has not been named, was walking with his partner in the 14th arrondissement of the French capital when they were confronted by the assailant, who was armed with a knife. The assailant was reported to have uttered antisemitic invective before stabbing the man in the back six times.
Police said that the victim was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. Journalists who visited the site of the attack on Tuesday reported that blood stains still remained on the sidewalk outside the launderette where the stabbing took place.
According to Le Parisien, a news outlet, the assailant fled down a nearby street after stabbing his victim. He was arrested several hours later at his home address. The paper said that the victim and the assailant had been friendly during childhood and had recently “reconnected,” only for the victim to discover that his former friend has developed an “obsession” with Jews. The victim had already filed a complaint with the police for antisemitic threats and malicious phone calls from the assailant.
Residents and traders in the area where the attack took place expressed their shock. “The world has gone crazy,” one fruit stall holder told Le Parisien. “Most of the time here, it’s quiet. Everybody knows each other.”
In a statement posted to X/Twitter, the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) said it was “deeply shocked” by the attack.
“All our thoughts are with the victim, to whom we wish a speedy recovery,” the UEJF said.
Antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in France since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel.
Last month, the French-Jewish umbrella organization Crif disclosed that 1676 antisemitic incidents had been recorded in 2023 — four times the number registered during the previous year and an unprecedented record.
While in past years the majority of the incidents involved vandalism of property, in 2023, 58 percent of the incidents recorded were directed against people, with 13 percent occurring in schools.
The Oct. 7 atrocities had “acted like a catalyst for hatred by activating latent antisemitism,” Crif president Yonathan Arfi said.
Source - The Algemeiner/ Ben Cohen/X - Image - Reuters