Victim of stabbing attack in Monsey rabbi’s home remains in ‘dire’ condition
Officials gather outside of a rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y. after a reported stabbing. Image by Yeshiva World News/Hatzoloh of Monsey
(JTA) — A man wounded in the stabbing attack on a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York remains unconscious and on a respirator.
The doctors of Josef Neumann, 71, are not optimistic that he will regain consciousness and say if he does “miraculously” recover partially, that he is expected to have permanent brain damage that will leave him partially paralyzed and speech-impaired for the rest of his life, his family said in a statement released by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council.
The attacker’s knife penetrated Neumann’s skull and cut into his brain, according to the statement. Because of his condition, doctors have not been able to operate on his shattered right arm.
The statement noted that Neumann has seven children, “many grandchildren,” a great grandchild, and brothers and sisters.
“We urge fellow Jews across the United States and around the globe to please share on social media their own experiences with anti-Semitism and add the hashtag #MeJew. We shall not let this terrible hate-driven attack be forgotten, and let us all work to eradicate all sorts of hate,” the family also said in its statement.
The Saturday night attack at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg left five people injured.
Prosecutors filed federal hate crimes charges Monday against the alleged attacker, identified as Grafton Thomas, 37, of Greenwood Lake, NY. The family said in a statement after Thomas was arraigned on Sunday that he “had a long history of mental illness and hospitalizations” and “no known history of anti-Semitism.”
Police found handwritten journals expressing anti-Semitic views, including references to Adolf Hitler and ‘Nazi culture,’ and drawings of a Star of David and a swastika at his home, and used his phone to look up information about Hitler, hatred of Jews, and the location of nearby synagogues.
The post Victim of stabbing attack in Monsey rabbi’s home remains in ‘dire’ condition appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
