Rabbi tells how he was physically attacked and verbally abused by "anti-Semitic thugs"

A rabbi has told how he was physically attacked and verbally abused by anti-Semitic thugs.

Rabbi Arnold Saunders has spoken out amid a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents.

Rabbi Saunders said he was punched in the face outside the Higher Crumpsall and Higher Broughton Synagogue by a man who then ran away.

On another occasion a teenage boy walked up to him and yelled in his face.

And, while driving in Salford, he was shocked to see a man wearing a football shirt bearing an anti-Semitic slogan referring to the gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Rabbi Saunders, of the Higher Crumpsall and Higher Broughton Synagogue in Manchester, has also been pelted with eggs and has witnessed abuse aimed at other members of the Jewish community.

He is urging people to report all incidents of violence, abuse, vandalism and assaults.

Data collected by the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain and works to protect Jewish people, reveals that Salford has seen the highest number of anti-Semitic attacks in Greater Manchester in the first half of the year. Of 98 incidents that occurred between January and June, 43 were in Salford.

There were four assaults, seven incidents of damage and desecration of Jewish property, one threat and 31 incidents of abusive behaviour.

Salford has the second highest Jewish population in Greater Manchester after Bury.

In the 2011 Census 7,687 people in Salford said they were Jewish.