A 16-year-old boy of Palestinian descent was arrested on Saturday for allegedly assaulting a rabbi in front of the rabbi’s son in Orléans, about 75 miles southwest of Paris.
The alleged assault, in which the suspect was said to have savagely bit the victim, prompted condemnations from French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
The suspect bit Rabbi Arié Engelberg on the shoulder after accosting him and beating him on the street at around 1 p.m., the Le Parisien news site reported. The rabbi was lightly wounded, including on the cheek. The assailant left the scene after the attack but police arrested the suspect at 9:45 p.m.
The rabbi had complained to police about the assault. The suspect does not have a criminal record, Le Parisien reported.
Ariel Godman, president of the FSJU (United Jewish Welfare Fund), said the alleged assailant had approached the rabbi with a cell phone, appearing to film him on Shabbat. Many Orthodox Jews object to being filmed or photographed on the Jewish day of rest. The rabbi asked the suspect to stop, leading to the assault, Godman told the France 3 television channel.
The teenager in custody is facing charges of “deliberate violence committed because of the victim’s real or supposed affiliation with a religion,” Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren, the prosecutor of the Orléans area, told Le Parisien.
“The attack on Rabbi Arié Engelberg in Orléans shocks us all,” Marcon wrote on X. “I offer him, his son, and all our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith my full support and that of the nation. Antisemitism is poisonous. We will not give in to silence or inaction.”
Sa’ar wrote about the incident: “The resurgence of antisemitism in France and across Europe is not only alarming—it is a wake-up call to European governments, leaders and civil society.”
In 2024, the Service for the Protection of the Jewish Community in France (SPCJ) recorded 1,570 antisemitic acts in the country, a 6.3% decrease from 2023. That year, SPCJ documented an increase of 284% in antisemitic hate crimes over the previous year. About three-quarters of the 2023 incidents happened in that year’s final quarter.
Similar statistics were documented across Western Europe and beyond, where Muslims targeted Jews in connection with Oct. 7, 2023. On that day, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted another 251 to Gaza, plunging the region into war amid an explosion of antisemitic sentiment worldwide.
