Man charged over shul stabbing

MELBOURNE shuls were in lockdown on Saturday after a Jewish person was stabbed at the Rambam Sephardic Synagogue on Hotham Street in St Kilda East.

It is understood that two congregants had had a row about alcohol during kiddush at around midday on Saturday.

It is believed that after the argument, one of the men had left, before returning to the scene with a knife, with which he stabbed a third person who had tried to intervene in the dispute. The man was stabbed in the abdomen.

Community Security Group Victoria CEO Ricky Pearl said that when the shuls went into lockdown his organisation knew that a Jewish person had been stabbed, but they did not know the motives or where the offender was.

“At the time we did not know if it was an isolated incident or if the person posed a threat to other members of the community,” Pearl said.

“To mitigate this risk, CSG protectors were deployed to all venues and multiple mobile units were deployed to scan the areas around our shuls and ensure that the community was safe.

“Once we knew all of the details and that there wasn’t a threat to the community we lifted the lockdown on shuls.”

Precautionary security measures were also put in place at synagogues across Sydney, but they were quickly lifted when the nature of the incident became known.

According to Caulfield Police Station’s Sergeant Jack Russell, the two men involved were known to each other. The victim was taken to The Alfred Hospital.

“It was a single stab wound and the victim suffered non-life threatening issues,” Sergeant Russell told The AJN.

Police confirmed that a 46-year-old man was arrested on Monday morning and charged with intentionally causing serious injury, recklessly causing serious injury and assault with a weapon.

The man has been bailed to appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on September 23.

Meanwhile, the story of the stabbing was posted on the Facebook pages of several media outlets.

B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich raised concerns about some of the anti-Semitic comments on Channel 7’s page.

Remarks by users included: “Someone probably dropped 10c and then 2 Jews fought to their deaths” and “If the violence is between non Jews Jews profit”.

Abramovich said that he was outraged by the disturbing comments.

“The users who exploited this news item to demonise Jews as greedy and money hungry, and to peddle these sweeping, bigoted stereotypes should be ashamed.”

JOSHUA LEVI