AN ultra-Orthodox man spent Simchas Torah night in a Melbourne hospital after being physically and verbally assaulted in an allegedly antisemitic attack.

Menachem Vorchheimer was walking to Yeshivah / Shul with two of his children at around 6.30pm last Saturday when he claims he was confronted by a group of young men in a minibus shouting antisemitic slogans, and motioning at him as if they were firing machine guns.

When the bus stopped at the lights at the corner of Balaclava Road and Hotham Street, Vorchheimer, 33, approached the driver to inquire about the group.

“The racial taunts were deeply hurtful, particularly given when my father and grandparents had suffered at the hands of the Nazis,” Vorchheimer said in a statement.

As the bus drove off, two of the passengers reportedly leaned out the window and grabbed Vorchheimer’s hat and kippa.

A passing car then pursued the bus, cutting it off around 150 metres down Carlisle Street.

Vorchheimer ran towards the stationary bus, pleading for his hat, which was then thrown out of the window.

But when he approached the bus window to plead for his kippa, he said two of the passengers grabbed him by the arms, while a third punched him in the eye.

“I could feel the blood coming down my face … I was in a lot of pain, but determined to ensure they were going to be made accountable.”

To prevent the bus from leaving, Vorchheimer and others blockaded the vehicle until the police and ambulance arrived. He was later treated at Cabrini Hospital for facial injuries.

“It never crossed my mind that I would have been [physically] assaulted,” he said, adding that he had previously been the victim of antisemitic slurs.

Gavin Queit, director of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria’s Community Security Group, said the incident was the fifth physical assault on a Jew in Victoria this year.

He told the AJN that he hoped the “police will prosecute [the perpetrators] to the full extent of the law”.

Vorchheimer added: “While they’re more than likely to get a slap on the wrist … at the end of the day we have to set social standards of acceptable behaviour.”

AJN