Brussels: Jewish girl attacked by Moroccan girls, told to 'go home'

Brussels: Jewish girl attacked by Moroccan girls, told to 'go home'

This story was originally reported by the Belgian antisemitisme site and translated by the Philosemetism blog. See both for more details.

Via La Libre and Le Soir (French):

Océane, a 13-year old Jewish girl, was beat up Friday by five girls of Moroccan origin after a gym class at Neder-Over-Heembeek (Brussels).

At the end of a football class at the sports center in Neder-Over-Heembeek, five Moroccan girls from the neighborhood insulted Océane for being Belgian and of a higher social level. Océane asked for a little respect, at which their leader told her to 'shut up'. One of the girls told their leader 'besides, she's just a dirty Jew'. The leader then slapped Océane twice. The young girl tried to escape, with no success. The leader then repeated 'shut you dirty Jew, and go back to your country', and the five girls caught her and started beating her.

The incident was reported to the police. Océane did not at first want to go to the hospital, but after suffering from pains all weekend her father took her to the hospital on Monday, where the doctors diagnosed a concussion and inflammation of the cervical vertebrae. Océane fears retaliation and does not want to go back to school, where she's a first year student. The girls are second year students at the same school.

Océane's father, Dan, says this is not the first time. "There's latent antisemitism at this school. My daughter was insulted with 'dirty Jew' at least a dozen time last year, and already a few times since the beginning of the year."

Brussels MP Viviane Teitelbaum (MR), who has written in the past about antisemitism in local schools, denounced the attack and said she was shocked that this story did not get to the press and news sites.