A Boston rabbi who was stabbed multiple times on Thursday in a suspected hate crime said he believes “unequivocally” that the attack was antisemitic in nature and that the perpetrator meant to kill him.
Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was speaking on the phone on the steps outside a Jewish day school in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood at around 1 p.m. on Thursday, when he was approached by a suspect brandishing a gun and knife. The perpetrator drew the gun and told Noginski to take him to his car. When he tried to force him inside, Noginski started to flee and the suspect chased him and stabbed him several times.
Noginski was taken to the hospital for treatment and was released on Friday. Police arrested Khaled Awad, 24, for the attack and charged him with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
“It hurts. I was stabbed eight times, mainly in the arm, some in the stomach [area],” Noginski told Channel 12 news on Friday from his home where he was recovering from his injuries. The attacker, he said, “tried to hurt me dozens of times. I thank God for this big miracle, thank God it ended this way.”
Police said the motive for the stabbing was unclear as the investigation is underway. District Attorney Rachael Rollins said at a vigil in support of Noginksi on Friday that her office has opened a civil rights investigation to determine whether the stabbing is a hate crime.
“We have to recognize that antisemitism is on the rise, and we need to hold people accountable when they do this, so that they are made an example of,” Rollins said at the vigil not far from the stabbing site, attended by several hundred people.
“Unequivocally, it was an antisemitic incident,” Noginski told Channel 12 on Friday. “This is how I feel, I felt in that moment that he was trying to kill me, not [trying] to steal my car. He wanted to capture me and kill me.”
The rabbi said he offered the attacker the keys to his car. “He didn’t want the car, he didn’t ask for my wallet, or for money, or anything. He didn’t want anything. He really tried to aim for my heart, my body, which is significant.”
Khaled Awad is led into court while arraigned on charges in the stabbing of a rabbi near a Jewish day school, in Brighton District Court in Boston, on Friday July 2, 2021. (Mary Schwalm/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)
Noginski shot down the possibility that the attack was a botched robbery. “I think that if something goes wrong in a robbery, there’s no sense in pursuing the person and stabbing them for long moments. I don’t see another possibility, that it was something else. There’s nothing else it could be,” he said.
Awad pleaded not guilty on Friday to the charge and was being held without bail at his arraignment, pending a hearing to determine whether he is a danger to society. The attorney who represented Awad could not be reached for comment. A number for Awad, who’s from Brighton, could not be found.
The hearing to determine whether Awas is a danger is scheduled for July 8. Awad has no record in Massachusetts, but has faced charges of battery and theft in Florida, and was sent to a mental health facility there, prosecutors said.
Related Story: Egyptian man charged in Boston rabbi stabbing overstayed student visa, was in US illegally: ICE
Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed and wounded in Boston on July 1, 2021 (Chabad.org)
According to court documents, when police located Awad, he pointed what appeared to be a firearm at them. Three officers drew their firearms and ordered him to drop his weapon multiple times, authorities said. The suspect then lowered his weapon and threw it to the ground.
The suspect kicked one of the officers in the stomach as he was being assisted into a transport vehicle for booking, police said.
As soon as the school became aware of the stabbing, the facility went into lockdown and no children were in danger, Rabbi Dan Rodkin, executive director of Shaloh House, said in a Facebook post.
Noginski is an Israeli citizen who came to the Boston area as an emissary to spread the Chabad message, Consul General of Israel to New England Meron Reuben told the Boston Herald.
“We are horrified by what has happened,” Reuben said.
“I am grateful to the Boston Police Department for their rapid response, and relieved that the perpetrator is in custody. I am looking forward to returning to my work as soon as possible,” Noginski told Lubavitch.com after the attack.
Some who attended Friday’s vigil think the stabbing was a hate crime.
“I don’t think there’s a member of our Jewish community who did not hear about this stabbing and think to themselves, ‘Oh my God, it’s happened here in Boston,’” said Marc Baker, president of Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
The attack on the rabbi was an attack on the entire city, acting Mayor Kim Janey said: “I believe that an attack on any member of our community is an attack on all of us.”
(c) 2021 The Times of Israel. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
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The leftists are howling that Trump was responsible for the unarmed trespass into the Capitol building but, of course, they won’t ever concede that this stabbing may very well be a result of their pro-Islamic, anti-Judeo-Christian statements and stance that embolden such attackers.
How this leftist trash ever rose to such a level of power in this country is a tribute to the amoral prosecution of their functions in government and to the power of the corrupt press that aids them.
OF course they won’t. NOTHING IS EVER Their fault.
“….being held without bail at his arraignment, pending a hearing to determine whether he is a danger to society.”
If these events have any bearing on the issue, I would have to vote “Yes!” he is a danger to society.
IF HE does get bail, AND THEN the perp, REOFFENDS while out.. CHARGE THE DA, his lawyer AND the judge, as accessories!
Left out is that Khaled Awad is Egyptian and has only been in the US for 4 years. He should be convicted and then deported back to Egypt to serve out his sentence in an Egyptian prison.
I agree fully. DEPORT HIS SORRY BUTT.
Agree fully – that garbage needs to be in an Egyptian prison. They do not wring hands over whether their prisoners are comfortable, that their needs are being met.
Leftist politicians and mainstream media outlets fall all over themselves in a desperate attempt to promote the Big Lie that Islam is the religion of peace and smear as Islamophobic anyone who claims that a Muslim who viciously attacks a non-Muslim, especially a Jew, is religiously motivated. Tragically, as the clueless Biden-Harris Administration allows more poorly vetted, radicalized Muslims to immigrate to America, we can expect to experience an increase in brutal attacks against Jews and other non-Muslims.
Jews in Massachusetts need guns. However, that state opposes gun rights, which was the issue that led to the Revolution in 1775 when the British seized weapons in Boston and attempted the same at Lexington and Concord. It is as if The British won and still hold Massachusetts.
How many of these antisemitic attacks by Muslims are necessary until the American Jewish vote swings away from 70% for Democrats who import Muslim immigrants and favor Palestine over Israel? Why no Jexit and why no Holocaust chapter on how Muslims made common cause with Hitler and have not changed their minds?
Who knows. US Jews for DECADES have been voting democrat.. EVEN KNOWING the dems fully love mudslimes, OVER ISRAEL!
‘Oh my God, it’s happened here in Boston’
Notably not a “local boy”, so there’s no reason for surprise that this can happen anywhere that immigration standards are lax.