Rabbi Dies Three Months After Hanukkah Night Attack

A 72-year-old rabbi who was repeatedly stabbed in the head during an anti-Semitic attack in December succumbed to his injuries and died over the weekend.

The rabbi, Josef Neumann, had been gravely injured in the Hanukkah assault in Monsey, N.Y., the last incident in a spasm of anti-Semitic violence that shocked the New York area last year. The attacks included an early-morning stabbing outside a synagogue in a New York City suburb in November, and a wild shootout that ended with five people dead inside a Jersey City, N.J., kosher market in December.

Less than three weeks after the murders in Jersey City on Dec. 28, Rabbi Neumann and a few dozen other people had gathered in the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, a hamlet about 30 miles northwest of New York City with a large community of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Just before 10 p.m., prosecutors said a man barged into the home with a scarf covering his face. “No one is leaving,” the man, Grafton E. Thomas, said before attacking people with a machete, according to prosecutors.

Five people were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to prosecutors. The other four quickly recovered, but Rabbi Neumann was in a coma after the attack.

The rabbi’s death was announced on Sunday by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council. Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the council and a friend of family, said on Monday that he hoped prosecutors would upgrade the charges against Mr. Thomas, who had been initially charged with five counts of attempted murder.