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A lesbian couple came under a severe beating attack after she and her lesbian lover decided to put a mezuzah on their apartment door, according to police reports in Belgium.
However, Jewish activists claim that police in the Belgian city of Aartselaar, near Antwerp, have ignored and minimized the grave anti-Semitic attack, according to a statement released by the lawyer of a Jewish woman and her lesbian friend, who were hospitalized last month after being brutally beaten by their racist neighbors.
Lawyer Mischael Modrikamen called for an investigation by a committee of Parliament and urged the Interior Minister to respond to this incident.
The problems began after Ruth Sverdloff, a former tennis champion of Israel, and her Flemish girlfriend Cindy Meul, took up residence in a building in Aartselaar, last month. The next day, Ruth put a mezuzah on her apartment door.
Since putting up the mezuzah, they were constantly harassed by neighbors, who yelled at them every night. "They hit the walls and shouted anti-Semitic slogans," Cindy Meul said. “They called us ‘stinking Jews’, said they do not want Jews in the building and ‘Jews should f*** off," Meul said.
They called the police, but police did nothing. "I had to send my daughter to her grandparents because the child was too scared to stay here any longer," Ruth said.
The situation worsened after two neighbors raided the apartment and beat Meul, who at the time was home alone, leaving her bleeding profusely.
The unfortunate woman was taken to hospital with a broken nose and several bruises. The patient was treated for two weeks.
Police in Aartselaar decided to drop the case as "unimportant".
"When the ambulance took Cindy Meul to the hospital, she observed that a police officer was laughing and chatting with the suspects," Sverdloff said.
When Ruth Sverdloff called the police, she was told by a police officer: "You are in Flanders so talk Flemish and not English because she spoke English,” the lawyer said.