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Unown assailants stabbed a hareidi-religious man in Kiev, Ukraine, on Friday night.
30-year-old Dov Ber Glickman was attacked while making his way home from synagogue. An initial investigation has found that Glickman noticed that he was being followed. The assailants then attacked him from behind and beat him. After he fell down, they proceeded to stab him three times in both legs before fleeing the scene. Glickman managed to get up and returned to the synagogue where he lost consciousness. His friends called an ambulance.
Israeli news agency Hadashot 24 reported that Glickman lost a considerable amount of blood. He underwent surgery which lasted nearly two hours, and is now hospitalized for treatment.
Rabbi Hillel Cohen, of the Jewish community in Kiev, told Arutz Sheva on Saturday night that he had no doubt that the attack was planned in advance by a group of anti-Semites who chose to attack Glickman because of his Jewish appearance. He said that the attackers fled in vehicles that were waiting near the scene of the attack. He further noted that this is not the first anti-Semitic incident in Kiev and said the Jewish community is concerned by recent events and is calling on the authorities to deal with the phenomenon of anti-Semitic attacks.
In another incident on Saturday afternoon, several Jews were walking in the Jewish area of Kiev when they suddenly noticed that someone was following a local yeshiva student as he made his way to synagogue for Mincha (afternoon prayers). The Jews captured the man and found in his possession a diagram of the synagogue facilities. They took the suspect to the synagogue and waited until the end of the Sabbath before calling the police. Just last week it was reported that a teacher in a Talmud Torah in Kiev was brutally attacked by three locals and required medical treatment at a local hospital. The incident occurred as the man was returning from evening prayers at a synagogue in Podol. It is believed that the three attackers followed him from the synagogue to the building where he lives and viciously attacked him before he entered the building.
Kiev is one of several European cities where anti-Semitism has been rearing its head. In March, the president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress narrowly escaped with his life after a bomb was hurled at his car as it pulled out from an office. In the wake of the latest anti-Semitism, local Jews are being careful not to wear a kippah in public and security has increased at Jewish institutions in the city.nk