Mendel Deitsch is in serious but stable condition after a violent assault earlier this month.

Ukrainian police arrested four suspects, two of them minors, in connection with the brutal assault of Rabbi Mendel Deitsch in the Ukrainian town of Zhitomir earlier this month.

Deitsch, who serves as Chabad Lubavitch emissary to the former Soviet Union, remains in serious but stable condition at an Israeli hospital after a group robbed and beat him in the early hours of October 7.

According to reports in Ukrainian media, two males and two females from the Carpathian mountain region attacked Deitsch outside Zhitomir’s main train station, a chabad.org press release reported.

The assailants stole Deitsch’s cash and cellphone leaving him bleeding and unconscious under a bridge where he was only discovered the following morning.

Ukrainian police identified the suspects last week and made the arrests on Monday, Chabad reported.

According to the MIG News website, the unnamed suspects are aged 40, 21, 16 and 13.

Deitsch underwent emergency surgery at a Zhitomir hospital for multiple head injuries and brain trauma. His family arranged for Deitsch to be airlifted to Israel several days later for continued medical treatment at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan.

Director of Chabad-Lubavitch in Zhitomir Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm said Deitsch was most likely a victim of a street crime rather than anti-Semitism.

“It should be noted that this is an unusual case that does not in any way reflect on the community in Ukraine,” Wilhelm told Chabad.

Last month in Ukraine approximately 25,000 Jewish pilgrims from Israel, the United States and Europe converged on the town of Uman for the annual pilgrimage before the Jewish New Year festival Rosh Hashanah.

They congregate there for the holiday because it is the final resting place of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the 18th century founder of the group.

The pilgrimage has generated friction between the predominantly Israeli arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the police cordoning off neighborhoods for the pilgrims.

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