Father bashed in 'Racist' attack

[Papewaio]

Children see father bashed in 'Nazi' attack

A JEWISH man was racially abused then bashed in front of his two young children by a busload of country footballers drunk after a day at the races.

Victorian police are investigating the savage attack on Menachem Vorchheimer, 33, by players from the Ocean Grove Football Club.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The trouble began when Mr Vorchheimer and his children were walking along Balaclava Rd, Caulfield, about 6.30pm on Saturday.

Mr Vorchheimer was wearing traditional Jewish dress including a shabbat hat and a yamulka, the skull cap worn by Jewish men.

As the minibus drove past, some of the players were laughing and yelling racist abuse.

When the bus stopped at a red light, Mr Vorchheimer went to the driver's door.

"I wanted to find out where they were from so that . . . I could make approaches to that organisation," he said.

But the bus driver appeared to ignore him and took off when the light turned green.

Reading this I got rather down. I really don't like this kind of thing at all.

However reading on things got interesting.

As the bus drove past, two men reached out the back window, grabbed Mr Vorchheimer's hat and skull cap and hurled more abuse.

A driver who saw the incident pulled in front of the bus and stopped it.

Mr Vorchheimer said the men threw one of his hats out the bus window but when he asked for the other hat he was attacked.

"I was pulled toward the open window and then punched by a right hand into my left eye by a passenger on the bus. I fell back and was in enormous pain."

I thought, wow a guy stepped in to help that was brave of him.

Then.

"Meanwhile my kids are on the sidewalk crying and screaming," he said.

He said witnesses surrounded the bus and stopped it from moving.

Mr Vorchheimer said he sat in front of the bus and said. "You're not going 'til the police come."

When St Kilda police arrived they took details from the footballers and witnesses. They confirmed the men had been to Caulfield races.

Now that left a warm glow to see that a lot of people stepped in to stop this kind of behaviour.