Hate Crime: Kiryas Joel Man Assaulted While Visiting Milan

By Y.M. Lowy

A Kiryas Joel resident was attacked while visiting Milan, Italy, in a hate crime. The victim, part of a small group of heimish Yidden touring Europe, was consulting a departures board at the central railway station when a man began shouting at him about children in Gaza and then struck him in the head.

Train conductors stepped in to subdue the 25-year-old suspect, who was later arrested by police on charges of aggravated assault.

Walker Meghnagi, president of Milan’s Jewish community, told local reporters that many Jewish visitors avoid Milan entirely because of fear of attacks.

This is not an isolated incident. In September, a Jewish couple was chased down a street with dogs in Venice by a group shouting “Free Palestine.” And last year, documented antisemitic incidents across Italy nearly doubled from the previous year, according to the Antisemitism Observatory of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center Foundation.

Baruch Hashem, nothing worse happened after the intervention, and the man only suffered a gash on his head.