The man accused of using a machete to hack five Jews at a Chanukkah event had Jewish friends while growing up — and even did Shabbos chores for them, his mom told The Post on Wednesday.
Grafton Thomas, 37, “was born in a Jewish neighborhood in Crown Heights,” Kim Thomas said in her first public statements since her son’s arrest in the Saturday night bloodbath in Monsey.
Kim, 55, said her son would help one Jewish family observe Shabbos by performing melacha for them..
“Grafton grew up going there on a Friday afternoon to turn off the lights for them,” she said.
Read more at NY POST.
{Matzav.com}
Whatever his mother says he may have done when he was younger, has NOTHING to do with anything. There are no mitigating factors for being a butcher. What he did would be just as heinous had he done this to his own people and if a Jew would have done this, it would also be just as heinous. The outrage and horror resulting from Levi Aaron’s brutal murder of Leiby Kletzky Z’L was just the same as if it were committed by a non-Jew. Bottom line is that the brutality of this crime must be taken at face value and mentioning that he may have helped Jews in his past doesn’t in any way soften the fact that he is currently an anti-Semite that came to Monsey to execute and brutalize Acheinu B’nei Yisroel.
He’s a good kid. People make mistakes. Let him go. He needs a mentor. No harm. Remember be nice. //’
That’s all very nice, but that doesn’t excuse his violent behavior.
if that was true, he woulnt have needed to google locations of jewish temples…
According to halacha, it is not allowed having a goy doing malacha for a yid. Even though there are some exceptions in extreme circumstances, overall a concept and a term of shabos goy is against the halacha.