An individual suspected of having violently attacked the Rabbi of Orleans, Arié Engelberg, was arrested and is still in police custody this Monday, March 24. His identity is under verification, but some are advancing elements on his profile.
“I’m doing well”. Rabbi Arié Engelberg, attacked in Orleans on Saturday March 22, gave reassuring news of his health with BFMTV after the violence he was the victim. The religious was “struck in the head, bitten in the shoulder and insulted” by a teenager when he returned from the synagogue with his 9 -year -old son, according to information from France 3 Center-Val de Loire. The scene was filmed and broadcast on social networks. .
A teenager suspected of being the author of the blows against the Rabbi of Orleans was arrested on the evening of Saturday March 22, around 9:45 pm, more than eight hours after the facts, announced Sunday the prosecutor of the Republic of Orleans, Emmanuelle Bochenek-Pure. The suspect says he was 16 years old and has declined an identity but does not carry documents to verify it, it was therefore not “established in a certain way and is being verified”. If the identity he has given is verified, then the suspect is not known to the intelligence services.
Investigators have confirmed any information on the suspect’s profile, but other sources are advancing some unofficial elements. The various right master of Orleans, Serge Grouard, said to The Republic of the Center that “the aggressor is a stranger […] who has nothing to do here “, without however specifying the nationality or the status of the individual. The councilor has maintained his remarks on RTL This time evoking “the Maghreb origin” of the suspect. Details, not confirmed by the investigators, made by the mayor who was full of a migratory submersion of his city several times in 2024 after the transfer of homeless migrants between Paris and Orleans. For his part, RTL Indicates that the suspect is known by several names and claims to be of Palestinian origin.
Whatever the identity of the suspect, the latter is still in police custody this Monday, March 24. The Guard has already extended, must end in the evening. By then, information concerning the continuation of the procedure and the identity of the individual could be specified by the parquer of Orleans.
“I immediately understood that it was anti -Semitic”
An investigation was opened for “voluntary violence committed due to the real or supposed membership of the victim to a religion” by the Orleans prosecution in BFMTV. The anti -Semitic character of the attack is little doubt. The Orleans rabbi explained to the investigators that his attacker, who filmed him, had asked him several times if he was Jewish before moving it to tobacco. In the absence of a response from the religious, the aggressor insulted him and spit on him before attacking him: “Jewish, dirty son of a whore [sic]”. A version of the facts partly corroborated by other witnesses, one of which is approached by BFMTV:” I saw several shots, at least three or four and quite violent. He had a little blood at the neck, he was shocked, it had been violent. I immediately understood that it was anti -Semitic when I saw the attacker kick (…) in the hats of the rabbi. Everyone was a little stunned. “
“As Rabbi, for me, it was a matter of time before undergoing anti -Semitic aggression,” reacted the Rabbi of Orleans Arié Engelberg after his assault, however, not expecting such violence. He assured BFMTV that he will continue “to walk with pride” and “to express [s]We were judaism with pride “.” We were spit on it because we are Jewish, but we must not lower our heads, we must answer, “he said to his son, who attended the assault.
The great rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, denounced an “act of pure hatred” this Monday, March 24 on Franceinfo after the “ultra-violent” aggression of the Rabbi of Orleans. The religious also praised Arié Engelberg’s reaction and courage who did not allow himself to face his attacker: “He was tremendous with courage, capacity to see the major risk: that we film someone who decreases, who accepts, who curves the back”.
The President of the Republic quickly reacted to X. “The assault of the Rabbi Arié Engelberg in Orleans shocks us all. I send him, as well as his son and to all our compatriots of Jewish confession, all my support and that of the nation. Anti-Semitism is a poison. We will not give in to the silence,” he defended.