A Rabbi is Stabbed in Germany

Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch, 42, was walking home from his synagogue in Frankfurt's Westend district with two guests on Friday evening when he was approached by a young man described by witnesses as being of "southern" in appearance.

The man, flanked by two women, spoke to Gurevitch in what sounded like Arabic and then switched to German and said: "You shit Jew, I'm going to kill you." He stabbed him in the stomach and ran off.

Gurevitch was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery. He is now recovering and told Bild newspaper in a statement passed on by a friend: "I am much better. My wife is by my side all the time. The last thing I want is for this attack to be trivialized and swept under the carpet."

German politicians expressed outrage at the attack, which was reported in the national media.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement: "I have visited the victim in hospital and I'm shocked and angry. In light of the increasingly frequent acts of violence against minorities in this country, one has to ask whether the debate about no-go areas shouldn't be extended to other parts of Germany and not just the east."

Talk of no-go areas resurfaced after last month's attack on eight Indian men in the eastern town of Mügeln by a group of Germans shouting "Foreigners Out." The economically depressed east has seen a high incidence of attacks on foreigners ever since unification in 1990.

Dieter Graumann, the vice president of the Jewish Council, said Islamic hate preachers in Germany were partly to blame for assaults such as Friday's attack.

"We oppose leveling blanket accusations at the Muslim community because the majority of Muslims in Germany comdemn acts of violence in the name of Islam, but leading representatives of Islamic groups have to be asked what they are doing to stop hate preachers and the growing radicalization among young Muslims in this country," Graumann said in a statement.

Link

Comments

[AndyJ]

This is not a war of religions. This is not a war of cultures. It is a war over the question of civilization; Yes or No? What shall we have?

Rationalizing about the killers, assigning motives, fixing blame and looking for causes are the actions of a civilized person. Those actions are not relevant in understanding these beasts.

The idealogy frees them to kill, any time, anywhere, anyone for any reason and without fear of retribution or retaliation. The idealogy frees them to be pagan, wildmen, "wolfs heads" and other old time terms for the monsters that lie within us.

We have bred ourselves away from that boundary. We thought we were beyond that. We thought we could calmly discuss and debate types of culture, values, degrees of civilization and any disputes would be handled with no more than a "Gosh Darn" or possibly a slammed door...

These are like diseased animals. We either kill them or they will certainly kill us and all we love...

What was true six years ago, is true today. "We are all Israelis Now"...