Yonatan, the Israeli who was attacked in Berlin while listening to Israeli music, told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Monday that people stood by while the attack was going on and did not offer him any assistance.
“They heard the calls against us and saw the Arabs attacking us and did not even call the police," he said.
Yonatan was walking near a train station with two of his friends in the German capital while listening to a song by Israeli singer Omer Adam. The three assailants shouted at them and threatened that if they played the song again, they would kill them.
Yonatan recalled the attackers telling him, "For 70 years you have been murdering our family. If I had a knife, I would kill you."
The assailants then attacked Yonatan and his friends and pushed them onto the train tracks.
"From now on, it's clear that I'll behave differently. I never expected such an attack, I’ve always played songs loudly like that. I have never seen anyone reacting like that."
The incident in Berlin followed an incident in April in which an Israeli Arab man who had been wearing a kippah was attacked by a Syrian man in Berlin.
The assailant beat the Israeli man, and used his belt to whip him. The victim required hospitalization.
The victim, who is not Jewish, told Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle that he had grown up in an Arab-Christian family in Haifa, and explained he put on the kippah as an experiment to see “how bad it is to walk Berlin’s streets as a Jew today.”
The attacker has since been charged with assault. The attack led thousands of Jews and non-Jews alike to don kippot and participate in “Wear a Kippah” rallies in Berlin and other German cities to protest anti-Semitism.