Seminary on alert after street attack on rabbi

ONE of the first rabbis ordained in Germany since the Holocaust has been beaten up on a Berlin street, prompting a seminary to advise students not to wear skullcaps in public.

Daniel Alter, 53, was attacked after collecting his young daughter from piano lessons on Tuesday. He was accosted by a group of four young men, one of whom asked: “Are you a Jew?”

They shouted religious insults and threatened to kill his daughter during the attack, which left Mr Alter with injuries to his face.

German media said the ­attackers were of Arab origin. Germany’s Central Council of Muslims condemned the attackers. Germany’s Central Council of Jews said the incident showed violent antisemitism had again become a serious social problem.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit said the assault was “an attack on the peaceful co-existence of all people in the capital”.

Germany’s Jewish population has grown more than ten-fold in the past 20 years, due to immigration from the former Soviet Union. Antisemitic attacks are commonplace and police guard synagogues round the clock.

Mr Alter was made a rabbi in Dresden in 2006. He and two others were the first to be ordained in Germany since 1942, when the College of Jewish Studies in Berlin was destroyed by the Gestapo. His father survived the Auschwitz death camp.

The Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, currently training 28 rabbis, said it had boosted security and was checking mail.

“We have also given guidelines to our students on how to behave so that they do not become victims of such attacks,” rector Walter Homolka told the Berliner Morgenpost.“We have advised them not to wear their skullcaps on the street, but to choose something inconspicuous to cover their heads with.”