BERLIN (AFP-EJP)---A top member of Germany's Jewish community said Thursday he was verbally abused on the streets of Berlin in what he said was an anti-Semitic attack, a month after a rabbi was beaten in the German capital.

German police are investigating the claim.    

The secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, told AFP the incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon as he walked home with his four children near the Kurfuerstendamm, one of the main streets in central Berlin.   

"The man obviously felt provoked by the open prayer book I was carrying and my beard," Kramer said, adding he was on the way back from the synagogue on Wednesday, the day of Yom Kippur.   

He added he could not be sure the man had seen the book he was carrying was
a Jewish prayer book but charged: "It was definitely xenophobic."   

According to Kramer, the passer-by told him several times "to get out of here" in a very aggressive fashion.   

Kramer said he had shown the man he was carrying an unspecified weapon in what he said was a bid to calm the situation. "The weapon never left the holster," he told AFP.   

A nearby fast-food vendor called the police and both men pressed charges on the other. The police said it had launched an investigation into a "reciprocal threat."   

Authorities could not confirm the abuse was xenophobic in nature.   

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit said that "threats against Jewish citizens on the streets are disgraceful and absolutely not acceptable."   

In August, Rabbi Daniel Alter was attacked in broad daylight by four youths of Arab origin who also threatened to kill his six-year-old young daughter, apparently because he was wearing traditional Jewish kippah, police said.   

The American Jewish Committee called on politicians to take "concrete measures" against anti-Semitism in what the group said was "a social climate in which negative portrayal of Jews is increasingly acceptable."   

The association said a recent high-profile debate about circumcision in the country, after a court ruled it was tantamount to grievous bodily harm, had made the situation worse.