World Report

Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

BONN (JTA) — An Israeli tourist has been attacked by skinheads in the German city of Potsdam, near Berlin, police said.

Jonathan Rochman, 19, suffered head wounds and a broken nose as a result of last weekend's attack, Potsdam police said Monday. Rochman received medical treatment and was released to the family with which he has been staying.

Rochman could not be reached for comment.

No arrests have been made, but police publicized descriptions of the suspects in Tuesday's local papers.

Rochman and his girlfriend went to a concert in Berlin Sunday and used the Potsdam subway on their way back, police said.

When he and his girlfriend parted, a young German approached him and, after determining that Rochman was a foreigner, began to beat him up with a baseball bat, police said.

Rochman initially escaped the blows. But another German youth joined in, hitting Rochman with a bottle.

The wounded Rochman then fell to the ground as the two skinheads continued to hit him in the face, police said. The skinheads fled the scene a few minutes later.

Buenos Aires rebuilds bombed Jewish center

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — In an effort to put the pall of terror behind them, Jewish officials here last week hosted a festive party to mark the start of reconstruction of the Jewish headquarters destroyed last year by a massive bomb blast.

Former Argentine President Raul Alfonsin, Israeli Ambassador to Argentina Yitzhak Aviran and representatives of Jewish institutions were among the 200 guests attending the party for the rebuilding of the Argentine Mutual Aid Association, or AMIA, headquarters.

The terrorist blast on July 18, 1994, killed 86 people and left at least 300 wounded.

AMIA President Alberto Crupnicoff invited the guests to sign a parchment that was scheduled to be placed under the building's foundation stone.

AMIA officials also invited the local population at large to add their signatures to the parchment before the foundation stone is put into place later this week.

French Jewish leader backs nuclear testing

PARIS (JTA) — The president of the European Jewish Congress has backed French President Jacques Chirac's decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

EJC head Jean Kahn, also the president of the Consistoire Central, which oversees the religious needs of the French Jewish community, recently wrote an opinion piece in the daily Le Monde explaining why he thought that France should have nuclear weapons. The weapons serve as a deterrent, Kahn wrote.

Citing the war in the former Yugoslavia, where no Western power has wanted to intervene, Kahn said that when a country has to defend itself, it can only rely on its own strength. He also argued that France needed nuclear weapons at a time when countries such as Iran are trying to acquire a nuclear capacity.