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Europe
Not-Lutheran arrested in connection with stabbing of Rabbi
2007-09-14
A 22-year-old German man of Afghan origin has been arrested in connection with the stabbing of a rabbi in Frankfurt. According to reports, he has confessed, but said that he didn't want to kill his victim.
That's not what the many witnesses said.
Police said that they found the man, who was born in Germany to Afghan parents, after he bragged about the incident in an Internet forum.

The attack occurred on Friday, Sept. 7, as Rabbi Zalman G. was walking home from his synagogue. According to witnesses, the suspect pestered the Jewish clergyman before yelling "Dirty Jew -- I'll kill you" in German and attacking the rabbi with a knife.
"Dirty Jew". Bowdlerized, but close
"He felt physically inferior to the rabbi and so reached for his knife," a Frankfurt prosecutor was quoted as saying by AP news service.
Since when do prosecutors make excuses for brutal, knife-wielding thugs? Oh, he's a German prosecutor ...
The man now faces charges of attempted manslaughter and dangerous bodily harm, according to prosecutors, who said they would give more information at a press conference later on Friday.

Zalman G. is still recovering from his wounds at a hospital. Leaders of the city's Jewish community said the attack had especially shocked older Jews, who "felt old wounds and scars," as community leader Salomon Korn told AP. Korn, who is also the vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that he didn't believe that additional security for Jewish buildings was needed.

According to a government report, 1,024 anti-Semitic criminal acts, 2 percent of which were violent, were reported committed in 2006.
Posted by:mrp

#9  If you say: "I love you" while you stab me, does that make the wounds less? Kill him. now
Posted by: Frank G   2007-09-14 22:15  

#8  Rambler, that's why, when working with new vocabulary, I always check the back-translation to see if it matches -- very often it doesn't -- and a second dictionary the same. I've gotten into awkward situations using the wrong word in a sentence that sounded like I knew what I was saying.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-14 18:19  

#7   Attack reopens old wounds

I thought for a second the Rabbi had been wounded in a previous knife attack.
Posted by: Unique Battle   2007-09-14 16:44  

#6  tw, I used Altavista's BabelFish translation, since I don't have my German dictionary handy. If you translate geistlich back to English, it gives "religiously".
Although, that would work too....
Someday I'll learn not to trust BabelFish.
Posted by: Rambler   2007-09-14 15:18  

#5  Rambler, I'd always heard geistlich used in a religious sense, as spiritually, ie der Heilige Geist. My Langenscheidts Handwoerterbuch defines it that way as well, although going from English to German, geistlich is given as a translation for mentally.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-14 14:37  

#4  After reading the Associated Press article on the matter, it appears DW garbled the language.

AP excerpt:

The Frankfurt-born German citizen, whose parents come from Afghanistan, maintains that he greeted the rabbi with the words "salem aleikum," or "peace upon you." In their statement, they said that there was then "an exchange of words which ended in a physical confrontation."

The suspect said that he "felt physically inferior to the rabbi and so reached for his knife," they added. The weapon had a 7.6-centimeter (3-inch) blade.

My apologies to the Frankfurt prosecutor's office.
Posted by: mrp   2007-09-14 13:55  

#3  I have to wonder why the Jews still want to live in Germany. I would have thought that regardless of the contriction and laws against holocaust denial, it is still a rather macbre place to be a Jew.
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2007-09-14 13:49  

#2  tw, I'm sure that the prosecutor meant "geistlich" rather than "physikalisch". ("Mentally" rather than "physically", for the non-German speakers)
Posted by: Rambler   2007-09-14 13:30  

#1  "He felt physically inferior to the rabbi and so reached for his knife,"

Physically inferior? A healthy, young man felt physically inferior to an aging (if I recall correctly) cleric?
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-14 12:49  

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