Monday, February 15, 2016

Best Story of the Day: Survivor of Antisemitic Stabbing in France Becomes Elite Fighter in Israel

I love everything about this story except that his father did not live to see this day.

KOL HAKAVOD to Jonathan Weinberg. 

AM YISRAEL CHAI. 

"Eleven years ago, Weinberg was living in Versailles with his father. "I came back from synagogue wearing a kippah and a group of eight youths jumped me, stabbed me in the stomach, beat me in the head while shouting 'Jewish son of a bitch' and other anti-Semitic slurs," Weinberg recalls."

"He was hospitalized for a month in very serious condition."

"I was unconscious and on a respirator, and it was really tough. I was in shock from what had happened," he says.Weinberg says it took him two months to recover from the attack, "and then I realized that in a situation like that of brutality against Jews for being Jews, France was no place for me."

"Eventually, after a short visit to Israel, during which Weinberg grew attached to the country, he decided to go along with his father's plan to make aliyah."

"My father planned to make aliyah, but unfortunately he died of a heart attack four years ago, at age 54 and didn't manage to see his dream through. It was a very difficult time for me, which made me want to make aliyah and fulfill my father's dream even more," Weinberg says."