Stabbed Israeli student improving as mother arrives in N.Y.

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — The condition of the Israeli rabbinical student who was stabbed at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn was upgraded.

Levi Rosenblatt, 22, who was stabbed in the neck and head on Tuesday while praying, was upgraded from critical to serious but stable condition, though he remains confused about why he is in the hospital, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

His mother arrived in New York on Wednesday to visit her son — the first time she has set foot in the United States in 25 years. Her son’s survival was a “miracle,” Reizy Rosenblatt told the Daily News.

Rosenblatt’s alleged assailant, Calvin Peters, 51, was shot in the stomach by police and later died in the hospital. He reportedly entered the Chabad building shouting “I will kill the Jew! I want to kill the Jew!”

The incident has been called criminal, not terror-related, though with elements of a hate crime.