A 60-year-old rabbi from Milan's Jewish community was assaulted by three young men while waiting for a bus near the city's Jewish quarter on Tuesday, according to the Jewish community.
A 20-year-old Tunisian man was arrested on suspicion of "religiously motivated violence," while two other young men are suspected of involvement in the attack.
According to a statement from the Jewish Community of Milan, the three identified the rabbi as Jewish because of his clothing, surrounded him, cursed him, kicked him, and punched him. The community's president, Walker Meghnagi, described the incident as "violence unlike anything we have seen."
Meghnagi said the assailants removed the rabbi's hat, threw it to the ground, stepped on it and spat toward him.
The rabbi managed to photograph the suspects as they fled and later filed a complaint at Milan police headquarters.
In addition to the 20-year-old who was arrested, two other young men, ages 19 and 22, are suspected of involvement in the assault. One is of Tunisian origin, and the other is of Moroccan origin.
The Jewish community said investigators were examining whether explicitly antisemitic remarks were made during the assault.
Meghnagi said the three "understood that he was Jewish by the way he was dressed."
Italian PM condemns antisemitic attack
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the attack.
"On behalf of the government and myself, I express my deep solidarity with the rabbi who was attacked in Milan and with the city's Jewish community. This was a cowardly and unacceptable incident," Meloni said.
"Antisemitic hatred is a scourge that we cannot and do not want to tolerate in any form, and we will continue to fight it with determination," she added.
The Israeli Embassy in Rome also responded to the assault in an official post on X/Twitter.
"A rabbi being kicked and punched on a street in Milan is not an isolated incident: antisemitism in Italy and Europe shows no signs of stopping. It is growing, becoming normalized and increasingly violent. Enough with the silence and the downplaying of its severity," the embassy said.