An Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed eight times and seriously wounded in a suspected antisemitic hate crime in the Swiss city of Zurich shortly after Shabbat ended on Saturday evening, according to local authorities.
The victim, identified by the CrownHeights.info website as a 50-year-old teacher by the name of Meir Zvi Jung, suffered severe wounds and was taken to the hospital, where his condition was said to have stabilized.
A 15-year-old suspect was swiftly arrested at the scene of the assault, Swiss media reported.
The Blick news site cited an eyewitness saying that the suspect laughed when arrested. During the attack, the assailant was said to have yelled “Allahu Akbar” and “Islam, Islam,” the outlet added.
Zurich city police said that all possible motives were being looked into and that they “explicitly include the possibility of an antisemitic-motivated crime.”
Following the attack, Zurich’s Jewish community gathered in the synagogue to pray for the victim’s recovery. The synagogue in the city’s Wiedikon district is now under police protection, according to Blick.
“After consultation with Jewish organizations in the city of Zurich, security precautions were increased around specific locations with a Jewish connection as a precaution,” Zurich city police said on Sunday.
In a statement to local media, the Swiss Association of Jewish Communities said it was “deeply shocked” by Saturday night’s attack.
Claiming that physical attacks on Jews in Switzerland are “very rare,” the organization noted that such incidents have been on the rise since Hamas launched a war against Israel on Oct. 7.
In the first three weeks after Hamas launched its terror onslaught on the northwestern Negev region, murdering some 1,200 people, the Israeli government recorded a 500% surge in antisemitic incidents worldwide, compared to the same period in 2022.
