TEL AVIV – A Chabad rabbi who was severely beaten last October in the western city of Zhitomir, Ukraine, succumbed to his wounds and died over the weekend.
On Sunday, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Deitsch was laid to rest on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He left behind a wife, 11 children and three brothers.
The 64-year-old was robbed and beaten at the Ukrainian city’s central train station in the days after Rosh Hashanah. He was discovered the next morning having suffered brain trauma and multiple injuries to the head and was subsequently airlifted to Tel Hashomer hospital in central Israel where he remained in a coma until his death.
Chabad eulogized Deitsch, praising his efforts as a longtime emissary in France, Israel and the former Soviet Union.
He later served as the head of programming at the burial site of Chabad’s founder, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in Haditch, Ukraine.
Two weeks after the assault, four people were arrested. Two of them were women and two were minors, according to Ukrainian reports.