Argentina’s Chief Rabbi assaulted in his home

The Chief Rabbi of Argentina, Gabriel Davidovich, was assaulted in his home in the capital of Buenos Aires on Monday, the local community reported.

Unknown individuals broke into his home at 2 A.M., beat Davidovich and told him: "We know that you are the rabbi of the Jewish community."

Rabbi Davidovich was attacked and his wife was reportedly tied up during a night-time break-in.

The attackers also stole money and other possessions.

It comes just a day after seven Jewish graves were defaced with Nazi symbols in San Luis in western Argentina.

The local Jewish community demanded an immediate investigation into the incident. It said that Davidovich suffered severe wounds due to the beating and that he is now hospitalized.

Police are treating the crime as a robbery, but Amia - a Jewish cultural center - said the comments made by his attackers were "a cause for alarm".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack in a statement, adding that "anti-Semitism must not be allowed to rear its head".

The country is home to more than 400,000 Jews, one of the world's largest Jewish populations outside of Israel.

Gabriel Davidovich has been Argentina's chief rabbi at Amia since 2013.

A bomb attack at the cultural center in 1994 killed 85 people and remains the country's deadliest terrorist incident.

Much of the evidence was subsequently lost or contaminated, either deliberately or through incompetence, and no-one has ever been convicted in connection with the bombing.

In 2015 Alberto Nisman, an Argentine prosecutor investigating the attack was found dead in his apartment with a bullet wound to the head.

Nisman who had alleged that former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and former Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman had helped to cover up Iranian involvement in the attack in order to protect a trade deal between both countries was hours away from testifying against the pair.

An official investigation first concluded that he took his own life. In 2017 a federal judge found that the prosecutor had been murdered.

Timerman, who died last year, and Fernandez have denied Nisman's allegations and any involvement in his death.