A leading Moldovian community rabbi and his students were violently attacked Thursday by a gang of anti-Semites while on a camping and fishing trip in Panasesti, located in the Chisinau region of Moldova.
Panesesti is a thickly wooded area, located about 30 kilometers from Kishinev Airport. Romania borders the Republic of Moldova to the west, and the small country is surrounded on its other borders by Ukraine.
According to a source at the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (former Soviet Union), the thugs also robbed the group.
“A group of eight or nine local young men, aged 16 to 20, treacherously attacked the sleeping campers in the early hours of the morning, beat them up and took away all the money the rabbi had for food and the way home (about 300 euro),” said a source at the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, quoted by the Interfax-Religion news agency.
“I have no doubt that the attack was anti-Semitic,” confirmed Rabbi Israel Livshitz, who was brutally beaten. Livshitz, who is head of the Jewish community at the cultural and religious center in Chisinau, was interviewed on local television about the incident.
A federation spokesman said the gang members “shook the rabbi, tore at his beard and shouted out anti-Semitic insults in the presence of his pupils.”
A statement issued by the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ) said it was not clear whether authorities would file hate crimes charges against the attackers.
Several of the alleged gang members were detained and an investigation was launched into the incident, according to a federation spokesman.