Jewish National Fund emissary Shlomo Ben-Chaim was among five Jews who were attacked in the streets of Sydney, Australia, on their way home from a Sabbath eve meal. On Sunday, he shared his story on IDF Radio (Galei Tzahal).
“I was with a group of four people. They started to curse us, ‘Dirty Jews,’ and just started hitting us,” he recalled. “I’d never seen such a thing in my life.”
“Within seconds, I’d been punched in the face,” he continued. “For 15 or 20 minutes they didn’t stop hitting us.”
Two of the victims required hospital treatment for broken bones, cuts and head injuries.
Police managed to arrest three of the attacks, two 17-year-olds and one 23-year-old. The rest managed to escape.
Effie Stenzler, head of the Jewish National Fund, said Sunday that he plans to call an emergency meeting. The violent attack in Australia came just hours after an anti-JNF rally in Colorado in which protesters screamed, “Long live the Intifada” That rally in turn followed on the heels of similar protests in France and Belgium, he said.
“We must take action to make sure this type of thing does not happen again,” Stenzler declared.