An intruder stabbed and wounded five people at a rabbi’s house in upstate New York during a party to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukkah late Saturday, officials said. CBS New York reported that a man brandishing a machete went into the rabbi’s property in Monsey, New York State, an area with a large Jewish population, and knifed at least three people before fleeing. “I was praying for my life,” witness Aron Kohn, 65, told the New York Times, describing the knife used by the attacker as “the size of a broomstick”. Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the OJPAC for the Hudson Valley region, told the New York Times one of the victims was a son of the rabbi. “The rise of anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish problem, and certainly not just the State of Israel’s problem,” he said in a statement.

Source: The Guardian December 29, 2019 06:56 UTC