VIENNA (WJC)–Moments after presiding over a public Chanukah menorah lighting in central Vienna’s Stephansplatz Square on Saturday evening, Dov Gruzman, a rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, had to be evacuated by ambulance after being attacked by a Palestinian man, who bit his finger.
Gruzman, who serves as principal of the Lauder Chabad High School in the Austrian capital, underwent a partial amputation of his finger and is expected to remain in the hospital for two more days. According to Rabbi Jacob Biderman, chairman of Chabad in Austria, Gruzman had just finished assisting Israeli Ambassador Aviv Shir-On in lighting the city’s central menorah before a crowd of more than 1,000 people when the assailant attacked him.
Biderman said that whatever the attacker’s intentions, the local community had rallied around Gruzman and that events during the rest of Chanukah would have increased attendance “as a sign of solidarity.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress