Police on Friday arrested 24-year-old Khaled Awad of Brighton, Massachusetts in the stabbing on Thursday of Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Noginski.
The attack took place outside the Shaloh House Jewish Russian Center & Synagogue in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, where Rabbi Shlomo Noginsky teaches. The rabbi, born in Russia and raised in Israel, is a husband and father of 12.
A man in his fifties, the rabbi was outside Shaloh House when Awad allegedly approached him, pointing a gun at him and telling him to open his car. The rabbi gave him the key, but the suspect replied, “No, you open the car,” according to a report by COLLIVE.
The rabbi and the attacker struggled by the car until the rabbi was able to flee, having been stabbed nine times.
Awad was arraigned Friday in Brighton District Court on charges of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on a police officer. (Awad allegedly pointed a gun at the police who came to arrest him.)
He will be held without bail until a “dangerousness” hearing on July 8.
However, it is not clear what Awad was doing in Massachusetts, or even when he arrived in the state.
Although he had no police record in Massachusetts, Awad already had a record in Florida, where he had been sent to a mental health facility after being charged with battery and theft.
Former college roommates and friends at the University of Southern Florida – where he studied chemical engineering – said Awad had started becoming violent.
A former roommate, Aidan Anderson, told CBS TV Boston that he and Awad were friends until the day Awad attacked him in their kitchen. Aidan moved out immediately and got a restraining order.
Eric Valiente, a friend of Awad’s, told CBS TV Boston that the suspect was “very much anti-Semitic. He would say, like, all types of Jewish jokes. I thought he was joking at first, and then I started to see the seriousness in his comments.”
After he was charged with assault in Fall 2020, both Anderson and Valiente said they distanced themselves from Awad.
“He disgusted me at that point,” Valiente said. “I wanted nothing to do with the guy. At this point, I was a little scared of him. I was scared of what he was capable of, because I realized he was a very dark person.”
Neither of them knows Awad’s connection to Massachusetts or when he got there.
Hundreds of people attended a rally in Boston to show their support for the Jewish community and to demand the attack be investigated as a hate crime.
The rabbi was released from the hospital just a few hours earlier, returning home to recover with his wife and 12 children in time for the start of the holy Sabbath.