Rabbi, 62, Is Stabbed In Manhattan By GEORGE JAMES Published: December
14, 1992

In what the police are investigating as a bias incident, a 62-year-old
rabbi, described as a pious man who spent much of his time visiting and
helping the elderly, the sick and the lonely, was stabbed Saturday night
while walking near the one-room synagogue on the Lower East Side he has
helped to keep alive.

The rabbi, Shaya Apter, of Monsey in Rockland County, a leader of Boyaner
Kloiz, a synagogue at 247 East Broadway in Manhattan, was listed yesterday
in stable but guarded condition at Beth Israel Medical Center with two
stomach stab wounds.

A lone assailant, described only as being a Hispanic man, lunged at
his throat with a knife shortly after 9 P.M. Saturday as Rabbi Apter
walked toward the synagogue after getting off a bus from Monsey, said
Capt. William Allee, commanding officer of the Seventh Precinct. 'Doing
Good for People'

"He is a modest man who spends his life doing good for people,"
said Elliot Caplan, a friend of the rabbi and a member of the
synagogue. Mr. Caplan is also an emergency medical technician with the
Hatzoloh Volunteer Ambulance Corps, which responded to the stabbing.

Noting that the rabbi was not robbed, Captain Allee, said: "We could be
dealing with an emotionally disturbed person who happened to pick him
because he was there. But as it stands now, the rabbi was dressed in
Hasidic garb, so we can't rule out it was a bias incident."

Assemblyman Sheldon Silver of Manhattan, who visited the site yesterday,
called the attack an "isolated incident" in a neighborhood in which,
he said, Jewish, Hispanic and Asian-American residents got along well.

The incident comes at a time of increased tension between many Jews
and Mayor David N. Dinkins after the beating several weeks ago of a
black man by a group of Hasidic men behind the Lubavitch headquarters
in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Hasidic leaders said the man was a burglar
and they criticized Mr. Dinkins for condemning what happened as a being
a bias incident.

Yesterday, Mr. Dinkins phoned the rabbi's hospital room and spoke to the
victim's son-in-law, said Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the Mayor. Last
evening, she said, the Mayor visited the rabbi and his family at the
hospital for about 15 minutes.

Speaking last night at the Festival of Lights dinner of the United
Jewish Council of the East Side, in an auditorium at 551 Grand Street,
Mayor Dinkins said: "I went to see the rabbi who had been so viciously
attacked and, thank God, he will be all right.

"I think that it is unfortunate that we have such incidents in our town,
but somehow we will survive these things and thrive. Those who are bigoted
and mean and unkind and uncaring are clearly in the minority." Other
Incidents

Yesterday, the police were also investigating three other incidents
suspected of being bias-related: the harassment of three Jewish teen-agers
in Brooklyn, the alleged ordering of a dog to attack a Jewish man on
Staten Island and anti-gay and anti-Semitic graffiti on Roosevelt Island.

Mr. Caplan said Rabbi Apter, who is married and has 11 children, was a
rabbinical supervisor in a kosher food-processing plant in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, and conducted prayer services at the Lower East Side synagogue.

He also visited the bedridden, including a stroke victim with whom he
would weep, and helped an old man with poor vision get to the synagogue,
walking with him each day.

David Ross, a member of the synagogue, said: "How are you going to make
people understand that there's such a man whose whole life is just
doing good for people? He is an ordinary man who does good things in
this neighborhood. He doesn't understand he's a special guy."

Photo: In what the police are investigating as a bias incident,
a 62-year-old rabbi, Shaya Apter, was stabbed Saturday night while
walking near his one-room synagogue at 247 East Broadway on the Lower East
Side. Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, right, who visited the site yesterday,
called the attack an "isolated incident." With him was David Weinberger
of the Hatzoloh Volunteer Ambulance Corps. (Monica Almeida/The New
York Times)