Switzerland police have stepped up security measures at Jewish sites in Zurich following a serious knife attack on an orthodox Jewish man in the Swiss city overnight, local police said on Sunday.
Police said they had taken action after a 15-year-old Swiss youth was arrested for inflicting “life-threatening” injuries on the 50-year-old Jewish man in central Zurich on Saturday night.
A Zurich police statement said it was not clear what sparked the attack, but that investigations were “explicitly including the possibility of a crime motivated by antisemitism.”
The extra security was put in place for “specific locations with a Jewish connection,” police said, following discussions with local Jewish organisations. They gave no further details.
Jonathan Kreutner, general secretary of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG), told Swiss television that physical attacks on Jewish people in the country were rare.
“A case like this is really a new dimension,” he said.
Concern about the risk of antisemitic behaviour in Switzerland has grown since the attacks by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequent campaign against the Islamist group by the Israeli government in Gaza.
Last month, the SIG raised concern about attitudes to Jewish people after local media reported police had opened an investigation into a sign in Hebrew displayed by a business in Davos which declared Jews were barred from renting ski gear.
