Rabbi harassed in Berlin

Two men shouted anti-Semitic abuse at a Rabbi and eight students travelling with him in Berlin early today and threw an object at their van, police said. The two men, driving a Mercedes Benz, braked in front of the Rabbi's van and then reversed back towards it while shouting anti-Semitic insults, police said in a statement.

"The 36-year-old (Rabbi) then saw the driver light up an unknown object and throw it towards his van," the police said, adding that the Rabbi could not explain what the object was.

Anti-Semitic crime has been rising in Germany, which has seen an influx of some 220,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union since 1990 after being home to just a very small Jewish community in the decades after the Holocaust.

Violent right-wing crime jumped 9 percent last year, and the Interior Ministry said last month it was up significantly again in the first half of this year.