Ephraim Manshari, a Year 11 student at Yeshivah College, was finishing his shift at Glick’s burger bar on Carlisle Street around 11.15pm when two Caucasian males approached the store from the west as they reportedly shouted “White pride” at Ephraim and six female customers, all in their teens.
“They asked if I wanted a fight,” Ephraim recalled, “but I just said, ‘I’m not interested, I’m going inside'”.
The perpetrator, believed to be in his 20s, then punched another student, who is visiting from Israel, in the face, before taking a cafe chair and smashing a 40-centimetre hole in the shop window, before fleeing on foot with his accomplice, also in his 20s.
Several members of the Community Security Group, who were dining in Glick’s pizza restaurant two doors down, pursued the two men several hundred metres down Carlisle Street, before they got away.
Police arrived a short time later, but left the scene after taking witness statements.
Around 45 minutes later, the two men returned armed with baseball bats and confronted Yeshivah student Alon Tam, who was walking home from Glick’s around 150 metres towards Hotham Street.
Alon, 17, was hit with a bat on the upper-left side of his body, both arms and his right shoulder.
The police were called back and extended their search for the suspects, including dispatching a police helicopter.
He said he had been the victim of antisemitic abuse in the past, but that this was the most serious incident to date.
“I’ve been called a fucing Jew, a bloody Jew on public transport, but I didn’t report it. But I realise now if I don’t report it [the incidents], it doesn’t get out there.”
Source:
www.ajn.com.au
Date: August 19, 2007
By Melissa Singer
Photo: Melissa Singer
