After a rabbi was stabbed in Frankfurt, a German Jewish leader fueled debate by proposing extending “no-go areas” beyond eastern Germany.
“Given the increasing acts of violence against minorities here in Germany, you have to ask yourself if the discussion about ‘no-go areas’ shouldn’t apply beyond the eastern parts of Germany to other areas,” Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement Saturday.
Knobloch was referring to the controversial debate about whether certain areas in the former East Germany are truly dangerous for those who appear to be non-German. A spate of attacks on people of African and Indian background has prompted renewed discussion on the issue.
After undergoing surgery, Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch, 42, was in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries. Gurevitch, the director of the Chabad Center in Frankfurt, described his attacker as
a “Mediterranean type” who spoke Arabic. He reportedly said something in Arabic, threatened to kill the rabbi and then stabbed him in the stomach.
Salomon Korn, a vice president of the Central Council, said the attack appeared to have been spontaneous and random.
Dieter Graumann, also a vice president of the council, emphasized that “the seeds for such acts are spread in sermons of hate that one hears also in Islamic communities in Germany, and not only in training camps for terrorists in Iran Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan.”
The State Prosecutor announced a reward of about $3,000 for information leading to the perpetrator’s arrest.
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