Ukrainian Girls Recovering After Antisemitic Attack
Two Ukrainian Jewish girls are recovering from injuries they received in an antisemitic attack earlier this month. Natasha Zhvakalyuk, 11, underwent surgery on her nose, and Sveta Abramovich, 16, received medical treatment for a concussion. Both girls have left the hospital. The two were among a group of Orthodox children attacked in Southern Ukraine. Thirteen students from a Chabad Jewish day school in Simferopol, accompanied by two adults, were beaten by two-dozen young men, aged 17 to 20, as they were coming home from services January 8. According to witnesses, the attackers shouted, “Here are the Jews!” The incident went unreported in the local and the national media. Local police reportedly arrested one of the alleged attackers.
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