A Jewish teenager was beaten by a group of North African men outside of the Buttes Chaumont Park near Paris this weekend.
The 16-year-old teen was reportedly wearing a Kippa and was assaulted during his walk home to get ready for Shabbat dinner, French news agency JSS reported.
It was during his walk back home that four men – described in a police report as North African individuals between the ages of 17 and 20 – beat him and stole his shoes, breaking the Jewish teen’s phone and severely damaging one of his eyes in the process, Israel National News reports.
After stealing his possessions, two of the men held the Jewish boy down while a third proceeded to strike him repeatedly and severely injuring one of his eyes, the report said.
Another witness said that a fourth North African then joined the group, called the Jewish teen a “coward,” and then proceeded to tell the three attackers to “break” him.
Jews continue to leave France for Israel in record numbers, citing Islamic anti-Semitism as their chief concern. Over 7,000 French Jews left for Israel in 2014, more than doubling 2013 statistics. The Jewish Agency expects the 2014 number to double to 15,000 at the end of 2015.
The most recent attack comes the same week that three men (described as being of African origin) beat a Jewish mother near Paris, calling her a member of a “dirty race” and yelling, “Hitler didn’t finish the job.”
France led all countries with a documented 164 anti-Semitic instances in 2014.
But perhaps the most notable anti-Semitic attack occurred in early 2015 at a kosher supermarket in Paris. In January, four hostages were killed when a man who had earlier pledged allegiance to the Islamic State held up the Parisian market in an effort to purposely target Jews.