No antisemitism behind injury of Paris woman with metal ball, watchdog claims

The incident which left a 79-year-old Jewish woman in Paris with cranial damage after she was hit in the head with a metal ball was not “antisemitic”, a watchdog said.

The woman was taken to hospital on Tuesday following the incident which took  outside the Jewish Community Center of the 11th district of Paris.

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism said today the incident was not antisemitic in nature, claiming a young boy dropped the ball from an apartment near the synagogue.

“The parents of this child discovered what had happened and called the synagogue’s administrators to offer the sincerest apologies,” the watchdog said in a statement.

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, on Twitter had described the woman’s injury as the result of a “violent assault.”