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Slashed to the brain, Monsey stabbing victim not expected to make full recovery

“Doctors expect that he will have permanent damage to the brain,” said Neumann’s children.

By World Israel News Staff

Josef Neumann, a victim in the New York stabbing attack on the seventh night of Chanukkah, is not expected to recover soon.

“Our father Mr. Josef Neumann was severely stabbed multiple times during the mass attack Saturday night. The knife penetrated his skull directly into the brain. He also suffered three cuts to the head, one cut to the neck, and his right arm has been shattered, ” Neumann’s children said in a statement.

“Our father’s status is so dire that no surgery has yet been performed on the right arm. Doctors are not optimistic about his chances to regain consciousness, and if our father does miraculously recover partially, doctors expect that he will have permanent damage to the brain; leaving him partially paralyzed and speech-impaired for the rest of his life,” they said.

Neumann is a father of seven children, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather.

On Dec. 28, Grafton Thomas stormed into the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey, NY and hacked five Orthodox Jews with a machete during a Chanukah party.

Thomas was arrested within two hours of the attack when police pulled his car over in Manhattan. Thomas had blood all over his clothing and smelled of bleach but said “almost nothing” to the arresting officers, officials said at the time.

Neumann’s children also thanked all of those who have contacted them for prayers and support and urged everyone who has been affected by anti-Semitism to speak up.

“We urge fellow Jews across the United States and around the globe to please share on social media their own experiences with anti-Semitism and add the hashtag #MeJew. We shall not let this terrible hate-driven attack be forgotten, and let us all work to eradicate all sorts of hate,” they said.

Since the Dec. 10 massacre at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey, there have been over a dozen of anti-Semitic incidents in New York and New Jersey, according to the ADL’s Tracker of Anti-Semitic Incidents.