Rabbi Mendel Deitsch, who was found badly beaten in the Zhitomir, Ukraine central train station on Friday, was airlifted to Israel by emergency medical transport and is in serious but stable condition at the Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan.
Rabbi Deitsch was found bleeding and unconscious after being robbed and beaten by what was reported locally as “a group of drunks.” The motive was theft, not anti-Semitism, said Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Zhitomir.
“It should be noted that this is an unusual case that does not in any way reflect on the community in Ukraine,” said Wilhelm. “Apparently this is not a case of anti-Semitism. Rabbi Deutsch was attacked and beaten while being robbed.”
After learning of the attack, Wilhelm rushed to the hospital in Zhitomir and “the best doctors were called in from Kiev, “ he said. Deitsch underwent emergency surgery in Zhitomir while the victim’s family in Israel urgently worked with the Israeli government and emergency services organizations in Jerusalem to arrange the medical airlift.
Deitsch has been active in strengthening Jewish life in the former Soviet Union for many years, and is a central organizer of hospitality and programming at the burial site of Chabad’s founder—Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in Haditch, Ukraine, where Deitsch is believed to have spent Rosh Hashanah.
The rabbi’s injuries remain life-threatening, and the family asks that people to continue to pray for the full recovery of Menachem Mendel Mordechai ben Miriam.
While the initial intent might have been robbery, after the realization that they had a Jew there seems to have been zealous brutality exhibited.
Most ordinary robberies do not entail torture & being beaten savagely to near death!
The sickness of political correctness has reached new heights. Everyone knows that during the Holocaust, Ukrainians totally collaborated with the Nazis. Today’s Ukrainians are the same vicious anti Semites. Why is there a need to whitewash the crime as “drunken thievery”? Why can no one feel safe calling evil as evil anymore?
Hashem should help them and he should give R Mendel a complete refuah shelaima! Why did this have to happen??
RS Rabbi and family!!!
מי כעמך ישראל
May this be the start of a complete recovery for him.
he is in good hands, Sheba, aka Tel HaShomer is an excellent hospital…may we hear good news
He should have a quick and complete recovery.
I can’t believe this is being downplayed to robbery
when it, like so many other awful attacks in the Ukraine, are outright antisemitism.
So shocking but thank Gd alive and thank Gd Israel went to get him and bring him home
refuah shelama rabbi!!!!
now
Immediate refuah!