A Swiss neo-Nazi who assaulted an Orthodox Jewish man in Zurich was sentenced to two years in prison, JTA reported on Wednesday.
The incident on a main street in the Swiss city’s Wiedikon district, the Jewish quarter of Zurich, took place on July 4, 2015.
The assailant made the Hitler Nazi salute and shouted anti-Semitic slogans on a Shabbat afternoon. He pushed around the victim and spit on him before police arrived and intervened.
The victim, a man in his 40s, was on his way home from a local synagogue when the attack happened.
The assailant, who has not been named, also was fined about $1,000 and ordered to pay more than $3,100 to his victim, according to JTA.
He previously served 12 months in prison of a 30-month sentence in 2013 for a different assault.
As of 2015, roughly 18,000 Jews lived in Switzerland, with majority of the Jewish community based in the urban centers of Zurich, Bern and Geneva.
Last year, Switzerland denounced anti-Semitism following an incident in which a Swiss hotel posted signs telling Jewish clients to shower before using the pool.
A spokesman for the Swiss foreign ministry said at the time, “Switzerland has been strongly committed for years - as it is at the moment, for example, within its presidency for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - to raise awareness to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.”
The hotel’s manager subsequently apologized for the sign, saying, “I have nothing against Jews, whom we regularly receive warmly here. I may have selected the wrong words; the signs should have been addressed to all the guests instead of Jewish ones.”