Football club attack on yomtov

Ozmom

Mon, Oct 16 2006, 10:16 pm

http://www.news.com.au/story/0......html
Football club sorry for 'Nazi' attack
AN Australian Rules football club has apologised for an assault on a Jewish man who has said drunken players hurled racial taunts and bashed him in front of his young children.

Victorian police are investigating the savage attack on Menachem Vorchheimer, 33, by players from the Ocean Grove Football Club. About 20 footballers had just left Caulfield racecourse in a mini-bus.

Mr Vorchheimer has said the men yelled "F--- off Jews" and "Go the Nazis" before motioning as if they were shooting a machine gun at him and his children. They then snatched his traditional Jewish headwear and punched him in the face, he has said.

The club's president has apologised to Mr Vorchheimer. But the team's coach has said the incident was an "accident" and that the father of two had rejected an apology offered immediately afterwards.

Mr Vorchheimer has told the Herald Sun his children, aged 6 and 3, were screaming and crying during the attack that left him with cuts and bruises to the face.

Witnesses surrounded the bus and stopped it from driving off until police arrived.

The trouble began when Mr Vorchheimer and his children were walking along Balaclava Rd, Caulfield, about 6.30pm on Saturday.

Mr Vorchheimer was wearing traditional Jewish dress including a shabbat hat and a yamulka, the skull cap worn by Jewish men.

As the minibus drove past, some of the players were laughing and yelling racist abuse, he has said.

When the bus stopped at a red light, Mr Vorchheimer went to the driver's door.

"I wanted to find out where they were from so that . . . I could make approaches to that organisation," he said.

But the bus driver appeared to ignore him and took off when the light turned green.

As the bus drove past, two men reached out the back window, grabbed Mr Vorchheimer's hat and skull cap and hurled more abuse.

A driver who saw the incident pulled in front of the bus and stopped it.

Mr Vorchheimer said the men threw one of his hats out the bus window but when he asked for the other hat he was attacked.

"I was pulled toward the open window and then punched by a right hand into my left eye by a passenger on the bus. I fell back and was in enormous pain."

Mr Vorchheimer said he felt blood running down his face as the men threw his other hat out the window.

"Meanwhile my kids are on the sidewalk crying and screaming," he said.

He said witnesses surrounded the bus and stopped it from moving.

Mr Vorchheimer said he sat in front of the bus and said. "You're not going 'til the police come."

Apology

Ocean Grove Football Club president Michael Vines has said he does not know the circumstances of the attack, but he has apologised and says the club take the allegations seriously.

"If that did in fact occur, on behalf of the club I would apologise to him most sincerely," he has said on Southern Cross radio.

But coach Matthew Sproule has said Mr Vorchheimer's hats were removed "accidentally" in a tussle through the bus window.

"The driver ... did not know the person at the back had the hat. We realised the person was chasing us down the street for his hat. We pulled over and we put the hat to the side, then we got run off the road by another person who wouldn't let us move after his hat was returned.

"We don't know (who threw the punch) with all the commotion that was going on at the time.

"At the time the man in question asked for an apology and we gave an apology to him and he said, 'No, it's 10 seconds too late. I'm calling the police'."

Mr Vorchheimer was treated at Cabrini Hospital. He said he had suffered headaches and nausea since the attack and his children had undergone counselling.

He said he had no doubt he was attacked because of his faith.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Grahame Leonard said the attack was the fifth unprovoked assault on a member of the Jewish community in Victoria this year.

- Herald Sun and AAP

mirikush

Sun, Dec 24 2006, 4:34 am

Unfortunatly there is a lot of antisemitism here in Melbourne but when you complain not a lot is said or done about it. Just last monday my family went through the same thing. We live next to a new house in the final stage of construction. they had people here (and I use that term loosely now!!) at 6am. At first I thought they were vandals as they were hitting steel pipies and lighting small fires etc. After trying to sleep through the nonsense for over an hour I dragged myself out of bed only to find it had only just gone past 7.15pm. So I called the police (after I saw them lighting fires) and asked if today was a total fire ban and explained why I was asking. They said they are not allowed to make noise until after 7am and that I should call on tuesday if they made another early start!
Anyway DH goes out and asked that if they start early the next day could they please keep the noise down until 7am. A reasonable request I would have thought. But he got told where he could go so he just left it after all he said it takes 2 to make a fight!
All day they made a racquet and were calling out things but we ignored them.
The second day was a repeat of the first...a lovely 6am wake up call with non work noise once again. I called the police again who said they would visit during the day and remind them politely of the 7am law!!. At 6.30am after putting up with their swearing, banging our new fence etc I went outside to have a look at the advertisement board out the front so that I could retrieve a phone # of the builder.
The 'workers' asked me if I enjoyed the early morning wake up call etc and a couple of insults about my ugliness which I pretty much ignored.
Then a 9am they started throwing things at our windows and shouting out verbal abuse. We call the emergency # and within 10 minutes the police arrived. All they did was tell them to be good boys etc. even though I said I heard what sounded like antisemitic remarks.
After the police arrived they just repeated the whole scenario although this time they decided that they were going to shout out their anti semitic remarks quite loudly. Ie that 'we should all burn' and making salutes etc and saying heil H##tler amoungst other things. Also something about Lebanon which I didn't quite catch. We called up the real estate agent in the end out of desperation and told them if something wasn't done we would call the jewish news. They tried to distance them selves from the whole matter saying they only represented the builder. However our concern was that the agent who I had previously called twice was not even prepared to call the owner of the building site to let him know what his workers were doing.
So up until 3pm we had to put up with constant anti semitic remarks. Luckily they left but with promises to return the following day and make more noise etc. They drove off with a salute and a 'burn the Jews 'remark.
The next day after much thought we went to the police station and made a formal complaint. We gave them pictures of the offender (albeit not very clear) and played a tape of one of them ranting about H**tler which I recorded after the stone throwing. But because we have no independent witnesses we have less of a complaint even with the tape. Incredible. I am still jumping every time there is a loud noise next door. We are still waiting for the police to call us back.
I feel for the other guy as I am sure the police have tried to get rid of that incident also. There has been nothing in the papers about it since. It was all treated as some boyish prank but having gone through what we just did I know it was not a prank. There was pure hatred there and it was a wake up call.
Incidentley apart from asking them to keep the noise down and going outside 630 to write down a phone # am we did nothing to provoke these animals. Unfortunatley my kids heard it all.