News Brief05:45 AM

(IsraelNN.com) A rabbi suffered critical wounds after being severely beaten in the latest of several anti-Semitic attacks that have hit the community of Lakewood, New Jersey, home of the world-famous Lakewood Yeshiva. Rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz, age 53, was beaten, reportedly by a black man, as he was walking to a synagogue. The attacker wielded an aluminum baseball bat and inflicted critical wounds on his head and other parts of the body, but officials have not concluded the incident was anti-Semitic.

Several weeks ago, attackers pelted a group of orthodox Jewish youth with eggs in a nearby community. Tension in the city has increased fears among the Jewish community. One teenage boy reported that a woman asked him to accompany her from a store to her car 100 feet away because she was scared of being attacked.