Jewish doctor murdered in Ukraine

Prominent orthopedist said to be slain by three Muslim ex-students, but conflicting accounts are reported

By Gabe Fisher 21 October 2012, 9:02 am Edit

View of Lviv, Ukraine (photo credit: CC BY SA alexeyklyukin/Flikr)

A well-known Jewish orthopedist and professor in Lviv, Ukraine, was reportedly murdered on Saturday morning near his home by three young Muslim men, who were later captured by the police.

According to the Jewish Press and the ultra-Orthodox Israeli website bhol.co.il, the perpetrators were former students of the doctor, Leon Freifeld, who had been expelled from university due to poor grades.

Russian-language news site Vse Komentarii reported a different version of events, in which a reportedly inebriated 26-year-old foreign national attacked Freifeld and beat him to death.

Ukranian news site ZIK identified the attacker as Moroccan.

The motives for the attack were unclear.

Freifeld’s brother, who is a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, reportedly flew to Ukraine on Saturday evening.

Some 1,000 Jews still live in Lviv, a center of Jewish life before World War II. In 2011, a plaque commemorating victims of the Lviv ghetto was desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti.