The victim of an alleged anti-Semitic attack that took place in Ukraine last
week was flown to Israel on Tuesday to receive treatment for his
wounds.
Community members identified Aharon Alexander Gorshonov, a
25-yearold yeshiva student, at a hospital in Kiev last Monday, where he was
being treated for serious head wounds some 48 hours after he had
disappeared.
“He was last seen leaving the synagogue with a white kippa
on his head on the second night of Seder,” said Yaakov Zilberman, a member of
the Jewish community and representative of emergency response group Zaka. “When
we found him at the hospital, his face was bloodied and his skull
shattered.”
Zilberman said Gorshonov went missing in the same area of
Kiev where skinheads brutally attacked another member of the local Jewish
community seven years ago.
So far, police have not elaborated on the
circumstances of the attack, but 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 in his ultra-Orthodox
garb, complained that he had regularly been subjected to anti- Semitic taunts
and abuse since he moved to Ukraine over a decade ago.
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