The Toronto Star reports that local police are searching for two suspects in the murder of David Rosenzweig, 49, outside a Jewish pizza shop early yesterday morning. Although Police Chief Julian Fantino said yesterday, \"We know that the victim was a middle-aged Hasidic Jew and the two suspects had the appearances of skinheads,\" he would say only that, \"We are looking at the possibility of this being a hate-motivated crime.\" The victim had arrived to help his son who had been involved in a fender-bender, when the suspects came out of the pizzeria - where they came \"to create trouble,\" an eye-witness said - and saw Rosenzweig, dressed as hareidi Jews are dressed around the world. The paper reported that witnesses heard one of the attackers yelling, \"He\'s a rabbi,\" before he pulled out a 30-centimeter knife and thrust it into Rosenzweig\'s lower back. The victim, who is survived by his wife Chavi, six children, and one grandchild, was praised by neighbors and friends as \"a kind of saint.\" Contrary to earlier reports, he was not Israeli, but did make frequent trips to Israel.
Pearl Gladman, of B\'nai Brith Canada, said there have been recent incidents in which Jews have been harassed in Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto. Local Jews expressed concern that anti-Semitism had reached their area.
Yisrael Stefansky, a member of the Zaka volunteer unit in Israel that helps in cases of this nature to gather blood and body parts so that they can be brought for proper Jewish burial, happened to be in Toronto at the time. He came with a partner to Toronto to raise funds and to get away from the tensions of his \"job\" in Israel, \"and we didn\'t expect to have to collect blood of a Jewish man murdered by a skinhead in Toronto,\" he told Arutz-7 today. \"We showed the people here how to do this type of thin, and now we\'re going to give them a course and train them, in case such a thing ever happens again in Toronto - a murder or an accident - they\'ll know what to do in order to bring the body for proper burial.\"
Pearl Gladman, of B\'nai Brith Canada, said there have been recent incidents in which Jews have been harassed in Jewish neighborhoods in Toronto. Local Jews expressed concern that anti-Semitism had reached their area.
Yisrael Stefansky, a member of the Zaka volunteer unit in Israel that helps in cases of this nature to gather blood and body parts so that they can be brought for proper Jewish burial, happened to be in Toronto at the time. He came with a partner to Toronto to raise funds and to get away from the tensions of his \"job\" in Israel, \"and we didn\'t expect to have to collect blood of a Jewish man murdered by a skinhead in Toronto,\" he told Arutz-7 today. \"We showed the people here how to do this type of thin, and now we\'re going to give them a course and train them, in case such a thing ever happens again in Toronto - a murder or an accident - they\'ll know what to do in order to bring the body for proper burial.\"