A 60-year-old rabbi was punched, kicked and spat upon by a group of three young men Wednesday evening while he waited at a bus stop near Milan’s Jewish quarter, an assault that has drawn swift condemnation from the top levels of Italy’s government.
According to Italian media reports cited by Breitbart News, the attack took place at a bus stop in Milan’s Bande Nere area. Public broadcaster Rai reported that the assailants recognized the rabbi as Jewish because of his clothing.
The group beat the man, tore off his hat, then stomped on it and spat on it before fleeing toward the Bande Nere subway station. The rabbi managed to photograph and film the three attackers as they ran off, and reported the incident to local police before being taken to a hospital for treatment.
Suspects identified, one arrested
By Thursday morning, investigators from Italy’s General Investigations and Special Operations Division, known as Digos, had arrested a 20-year-old Tunisian man described as the presumed main assailant — the person who, in Rai’s account, “turned words into actions” and carried out the physical attack on the rabbi.
Rai identified the other two suspects as a 19-year-old of Tunisian origin and a 22-year-old of Moroccan origin. Italian law enforcement officials said all three were born in Italy to North African families and are between 19 and 22 years old, each with a prior criminal record. The men are said to live in Milan province and travel into the city frequently to commit crimes.
According to Rai, Milan’s local government intends to issue expulsion orders against all three.
‘I feel ashamed of my country’
Walker Meghnagi, president of the Milan Jewish Community, told the news service ANSA that the violence was without precedent in his experience.
“I feel ashamed of my country for what has happened, we have never seen anything this violent,” Meghnagi said, adding: “Nothing this violent has ever happened before. They kicked and punched him, took his hat off, stomped on him, and spat on him. From what I’ve been told, they were three people of Arab descent.”
The episode comes amid heightened tension over antisemitism in Italy. Earlier this month, demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags protested in Milan against a bill aimed at combating antisemitism that adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism; the measure was approved by the Senate in March.
Meloni condemns ‘cowardly’ attack
Several members of Italy’s government condemned the assault in the hours that followed. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni issued an official statement expressing solidarity with the rabbi and with Milan’s Jewish community.
“This was a cowardly and unacceptable act, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms. Anti-Semitic hatred is a scourge that we cannot and will not tolerate in any form, and we will continue to combat it with determination,” Meloni said.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the incident “Very serious. Terrible. Unacceptable” in a social media post.
“Scenes of antisemitic hatred and violence that we thought had been consigned forever to history, and that instead return tragically to our cities,” Salvini wrote.
He went on to argue that the political climate had been warning of such violence for months. “For months we have been denouncing a climate of growing antisemitism, too often underestimated, justified, or fueled even by certain political factions with dangerous words and ambiguities,” Salvini said. “We cannot and must not get used to all this.”
A pattern of concern across Europe
The Milan assault adds to a string of incidents that have put Jewish communities across Europe on edge. In Italy, the attack on the rabbi is notable both for its apparent brutality — the beating, the desecration of his hat, the spitting — and for the speed with which authorities moved to make an arrest.
Investigators have not publicly described a motive beyond the apparent targeting of the victim based on his appearance. The three suspects are presumed innocent unless convicted, and the case now moves into the hands of prosecutors in Milan.
The rabbi’s own documentation of the attack — the photos and video he captured as his assailants fled — is likely to form part of the evidence against them, according to the accounts provided by Italian outlets.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/17/italy-jewish-rabbi-assaulted-at-milan-bus-stop/