CBS reports:
A New Jersey rabbi on his way to synagogue was brutally beaten with a baseball bat just steps from his home and left a bloody mess on the ground, police say, and many believe he was targeted because of his religion.
Gauze and rubber gloves still litter the ground where 53-year-old Lakewood rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz was savagely attacked with an aluminum bat. His face and head were so badly damaged that the paramedic who responded was his own nephew and didn't even recognize him.
"You wouldn't recognize him. It doesn't look like him, like anything like he used to look," said another one of Moskowitz's nephews, Moshe Rotberg.
Rotberg spent all night at the hospital with his uncle, who had to be placed into a medicated coma because of his condition.
"This was totally instigated by somebody's either sickness or hate," said Rotberg.
Moskowitz was attacked under the darkness of night in the middle of Princeton Avenue near 12th Street in Lakewood. While he was being attacked, residents tell CBS 2 they heard his attacker yelling at him."He started screaming, 'Jew! Jew! Jew!' Every time he hit him with the bat he banged and screamed 'Jew' again," said a neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous.…
Moskowitz remains in critical condition…