German police have opened an investigation into a report from a prominent Berlin rabbi that he was insulted and spat at as he was heading home from Shul on Friday night with his son.

Police said Wednesday they were treating the incident as a religiously-motivated crime and are currently looking for suspects.

Police say Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal was walking past an apartment building in the Wilmersdorf neighborhood when he said he was spat at and sworn at by two men inside the building.

Teichtal, who said the two men spoke in Arabic, called in a statement for “tolerance, dialogue and training.”

Despite increasing anti-Semitic incidents, he says he remains “convinced most people in Berlin do not want to accept this aggression against Jews as a sad part of everyday Jewish life”.

“The incident shows that anti-Semitic incidents are not only occurring in Berlin schools, but on the streets of the capital as well”, Teichtal said in a statement posted by the Jewish Community of Berlin.

“But I remain convinced that most people in Berlin do not want to accept this aggression against Jews as a sad part of everyday Jewish life,” he said.

Teichtal added: “Of course we will not hide now, but rather continue to build on love, tolerance, dialogue and education.”

Born in New York, Teichtal has been active in the German capital for some 20 years. He also heads Berlin’s Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Educational Center and is known for h is work to further dialogue between religions.

(AP / YWN World Headquarters – NYC)