By COLlive reporter
Hundreds joined a unity rally in Boston on Friday morning to show their solidarity with the Jewish community the day after a Chabad Rabbi was stabbed outside the Shaloh House Jewish Russian Center & Synagogue in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The victim, Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, serves as a rabbi and teacher at Shaloh House. According to a report, Rabbi Noginski was outside the center when the attacker approached him while armed with a gun and a knife.
The protest was organized by the CJP – Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Jewish Community Relations Council – JCRC of Boston, and included messages from Chabad Rabbis Dan Rodkin – Director of Shaloh House and Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi – Director of Chabad at Harvard. Rabbi Chaim Prus, Director of Chabad of Eastern Massachusetts, led the participants in reciting Tehillim.
“The Jewish community is angry, and the Jewish community is united,” said Jeremy Burton, the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. “We expect, we demand that we have the right to live, to walk in the streets – to be visible or not visible as Jews, to gather together to celebrate to live our lives as Jews fully, with joy and without fear. We look to our public and appointed officials to ensure that Jews have the ability to live and be free in this country, in all the ways that we have been promised and have come to expect in the last 200 years.”
Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins says her civil rights team, as well as that of the Boston Police Department, is investigating the stabbing, Boston.com reported.
Khaled Awad, 24, of Brighton was arrested and charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on a police officer in the Thursday attack.
Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker sent “Best wishes to Rabbi Shlomo Noginski” on Twitter.
“There is no place for hate in Massachusetts and we will always stand with our neighbors in the Jewish community in condemning every act of anti-Semitic violence,” he said.
Mayor Kim Janey said the attack “left a rabbi injured and a community shaken…And I believe that an attack on any member of our community is an attack on us all,” she said.
Best wishes to Rabbi Shlomo Noginski as he recovers after being attacked yesterday in Brighton.
There is no place for hate in Massachusetts and we will always stand with our neighbors in the Jewish community in condemning every act of anti-Semitic violence.
— Charlie Baker (@MassGovernor) July 2, 2021
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If the Rabbi hadn’t been able to fight back and sound the alarm that was certainly the intention of the attacker. Please let’s not trivialize this to ‘assault’.
This gathering shows strength and unity – both much needed. Thank you!