Palestinian Student Stabs Russian for Conducting Anti-semitic Campaign

The sensation of the day in the Belgian press is a deplorable occurrence in the agricultural college of Genbloux, near Brussels, where a Jewish student from Palestine, Mordecai Shapiro, stabbed three times a Russian student named Michaclson following a quarrel over a Jewish question. Shapiro gave himself up to the police following his act while Michaelson was taken to the hospital in a serious condition.

The case has made an unfavorable impression on Belgian public opinion. Some newspapers describe Michaelson as a martyr of the Russian revolution who became the victim of a Palestinian Jew who held a different opinion about Bolshevism than the opinion held by Russian emigrees. It is hinted that Shapiro was a Communist. The promnent Jewish attorney, L. Kubovizsky, is expected to become Shapiro’s counsel for the defense at the trial.

In the circles of Jewish students the attack is explained by the fact that the Russian student, Michaelson, was responsible for a vigorous anti-Semitic campaign carried on by the Russian students against the Jewish students (Continued on Page 4)

Among the Russian students there are many anti-Semitic agitators, some of whom have even actually participated in anti-Jewish pogroms during the civil war in Russia when they were members of the armies of Denikin. Petlura and Balacheritch. These Russian students have of late endeavored to cause anti-Semitism among the Belgian students to whom anti-Jewish hatred was unknown.

Mordecai Shapiro was born in Russia in 1897 and emigrated to Palestine as a child together with his father who is a rabbi. He attended the Hebrew High School of Tel Aviv and later the Teachers’ Seminary. He came to Belgian five years ago together with his wife. both working the first few years as factory hands in order to accumulate enough money to enable them to pursue agriculture studies.