Kiev Attack Victim Flown to Israel

The Lubavitcher bochur who was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack in Kiev on Motzei Shabbos was flown to Israel today to receive treatment for his wounds.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Aharon Alexander Gorshonov, a 25-year-old yeshiva student, was identified by community members at a hospital in Kiev last Monday where was being treated for serious head wounds some 48 hours after he had disappeared.

“He was last seen leaving the synagogue with a white kipa on his head on the second night of Seder (Passover),” said Yaakov Zilberman, a member of the Jewish community and representative of Zaka, an emergency response group. “When we found him at the hospital his face was bloodied and his skull shattered. We recognized him by his circumcision.”

Zilberman said Gorshonov went missing in the same area of Kiev where another member of the local Jewish community was brutally attacked by skinheads seven years ago.

So far local police have not elaborated on the circumstances of the attack on Gorshonov, but Jewish groups like the European Jewish Congress and members of the community claim he was the victim of a hate crime.

“We are going to meet with the interior minister together with one of our community leaders [businessman] Alexander Levin and demand that law authorities take action,” he said.

Zilberman, who is visibly Jewish because he wears ultra-Orthodox garb, complained that he has been regularly subjected to anti-Semitic taunts and abuse since he moved to Ukraine over a decade ago.

“Just now before you called, a group of youths hurled insults at me and made gestures,” an upset Zilberman said. “Here I walk around with security for my safety, but this would not be the case if I were in Paris, London or New York.”

There are up to 100,000 Jews currently living in Ukraine, which was once one of the largest Jewish centers of the world, though estimates vary wildly.