Netherlands – Amsterdam police have released additional details about Monday night’s stabbing in a kosher restaurant, putting to rest any rumors that the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism.
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As previously reported on VIN News (http://goo.gl/734MRe), a female diner at Grand Cafe Rimon had been chatting with a man in the restaurant when he inexplicably pulled a knife and stabbed her. The man had apparently bought the knife just moments earlier in a nearby supermarket and told the restaurant’s staff to call police after the unprovoked attack.
According to JTA, police said that the man, an unidentified Brazilian national, appeared to be mentally unstable, later telling authorities that he heard voices in his head prompting him to engage in the bloody attack.
“He appeared completely deranged and it’s not clear whether he even knew he was at a kosher, Israeli restaurant,” said a police spokesman. “This does not appear to be an anti-Semitic incident, though in the current atmosphere we had, of course, immediately suspected that it was.”
The victim, Victoria Warenholt, had been at Grand Cafe Rimon with a friend, who came close to being stabbed in the attack.
Describing the attack on Facebook, Warenholt said, “I suddenly felt a punch in my back and I saw the man trying to stab my friend in her face. My friend was not hurt, but unfortunately, the knife punctured my lung on the right side.”
Warenholt said that she is still in pain. With heightened tensions in the area because of last year’s kosher supermarket attack in Paris, Warenholt told others not to be discouraged by the incident.
“I want to encourage everyone not to be afraid and keep supporting the kosher retailers. They need us more than ever.”
A contingent of well known faces in the Dutch Jewish community dined at Grand Cafe Rimon on Tuesday to demonstrate their support for residents of the Jewish community of Buitenveldert.
“In Israel and in the Netherlands, we do not stand down to threats, be they terrorists, criminals or others,” said Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, chief rabbi of Amsterdam, one of those who dined at the restaurant yesterday. “We carry on with our lives as Jews and that’s what we’re doing here.”
Others who packed the dining room at Grand Cafe Rimon Tuesday were Rabbi Yanki Jacobs, director of Chabad Amsterdam and Haim Divon, Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands.
“Community leaders stepped in to make sure the owners suffer no losses,” said Divon.