Etzel said the 53-year-old rabbi and his sons, both 19, reported that a man approached them and yelled anti-Semitic slurs as they left a central synagogue on Saturday. A woman in a nearby car joined in, then spat at one of the boys when he approached her.

In the German capital, Berlin, police have been investigating a similar incident in which a prominent rabbi and his young son were spat at and insulted on their way home from synagogue last month.