Attack on Michigan teen investigated as hate crime after suspects allegedly asked if he was Jewish

A young Michigan man was assaulted last Sunday after he confessed to a group of curious bystanders that he was Jewish.

The unnamed man was walking in an area just southeast of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor early Sunday morning around 12:45 am when he was reportedly approached by a group of “unknown males,” according to the Ann Arbor Police Department.

The men proceeded to ask the 19-year-old man if he was Jewish. When he replied that he was indeed Jewish, the group of men assaulted him.

“The suspects then fled the area on foot,” a statement from the police reads. “The victim suffered minor injuries, and he did not require hospitalization. The incident was later reported by the victim to the AAPD on 9/15/24 at 12:20pm.”

Ethnic Intimidation Investigation

The Ann Arbor Police Department is actively investigating a bias-motivated assault…

Posted by City of Ann Arbor – Police Department on Sunday, September 15, 2024

The police are now investigating the assault as a bias/hate crime.

“There is absolutely no place for hate or ethnic intimidation in the City of Ann Arbor,” police chief Andre C. Anderson said in a statement. “Our department stands against antisemitism and all acts of bias-motivated crimes.”

“We are committed to vigorously investigating this and other hate-motivated incidents and will work with the County Prosecutor’s office to aggressively prosecute those who are responsible,” he added.

University of Michigan President Santa J. Ono also condemned the attack.

“We strongly condemn and denounce this act of violence and all antisemitic acts,” he said in a statement. “Antisemitism is in direct conflict with the university’s deeply held values of safety, respect and inclusion and has no place within our community.”

“The University of Michigan is a place where all students – regardless of their race, sex, nationality, and religion – deserve to feel safe and protected as they pursue the important work of becoming citizens of the wider world. Who we are and how we worship should never be a reason to strike out against another. Let me say it again – antisemitism has no place on campus and is antithetical to the core values of the University of Michigan,” he added.

Surprisingly, Ono’s statement prompted criticism, with some blaming the assault on the school’s confirmed lightweight treatment of the antisemitic protests that erupted on campus earlier this year.

“The Education Department has determined that neither the University of Michigan nor the City University of New York properly responded or investigated certain reports of antisemitic and anti-Arab discrimination on their campuses after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel,” Politico reported over the summer.

For example, the school did nothing when a Jewish student reported being harassed on social media.

“The Jewish student had viewed a graduate student instructor’s Instagram story that discussed pro-Palestinian topics, which led the instructor to screenshot that the student had viewed the story,” Politico  notes. “The instructor then posted a new story on the social media platform and tagged the student in the post, saying, ‘Did you like my educational talk.'”

This latest incident comes months after the police opened a hate crime investigation in June after antisemitic rhetoric was spray-painted onto the exterior of University of Michigan regent Jordan Acker’s law firm, according to The Times of Israel.

“This has nothing to do with Palestine or the war in Gaza or anything else,” Acker said at the time. “This is done as a message to scare Jews. I was not targeted here today because I am a regent. I am a target of this because I am Jewish.”

A month earlier before this vandalism incident, the police finally broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment on the school’s campus.

Months later, antisemitism continues to crop up on campus:

Vivek Saxena

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