On Thursday, October 18th, a Yeshiva student was stabbed multiple times en route to a birthday party just beyond the northern edge of the Uptown Campus. The knifing, which occurred at the entrance to an apartment building located on the corner of 189th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, home to many Yeshiva undergraduates, was the first such assault on a Yeshiva student in the locale in recent history.

Ari Abramowitz, a Junior Economics major at Yeshiva College, was climbing the building's entry steps when a stranger accosted him, demanding to know his destination. Abramowitz, a recently served as an Israeli infantry soldier, calmly informed the dark-skinned male that he was proceeding to a party on the complex's fifth floor.

Without warning, the unidentified man stabbed Abramowitz in the triceps and upper back. Abramowitz's screams gained the attention of Yeshiva students in the building's lobby, and the assailant fled.

"Initially, I didn't know that I had been stabbed," Abramowitz recalled. "Only after the people in the lobby opened the door for me and I ran inside the building did I realize what had just happened. I reached around to touch my back and my finger went into my flesh. When I pulled my hand back around saw that it was sopping with blood, I realized what had just happened."

Within seconds Abramowitz was lying on the floor with his shirt and jacket removed, exposing the gashes. "There was blood dripping down his body," recalls one of the lobby loiterers. An onlooker rushed up the stairs to inform one of the residents, a certified New York State Emergency Medical Technician, of the attack, while others called the police.

"After we cleaned off the excess blood, the wounds didn't look as bad on the surface," recalled the EMT. "But I was worried about the possibility of severe internal bleeding as well as the physical state of the patient. He seemed to be in a state of total shock."

Emergency personnel flocked to the scene within five minutes of the incident, and immediately transported Abramowitz to the bay of their ambulance. Preceding their departure, however, Jessie Miller - a Yeshiva senior and certified New York State EMT - examined the victim. "When I first looked at him he was writhing in pain," recollected Miller. "I told him that I was an EMT and he told me he wanted me to come in."

Because EMTs are not licensed to administer anesthetics, little could be done alleviate Abramowitz's pain prior to arriving at Harlem Hospital on 125th Street. "Beyond hurting, he was very, very scared. Our first priority was trying to calm him down," explained Miller.

Although the University Dean of Students David Himber did visit Abramowitz during his brief hospital stay, Yeshiva has made no official pronouncements to its students on the matter. "I am totally disgusted with the way YU has handled my situation," raged Abramowitz. "They should have told the students that something happened, and notified the teachers also. I just missed a midterm and my teachers don't know what happened," he fumed.

Furthermore, the assailant has not been apprehended, and some students fear that he could strike again. Ruben Espina Gomez, a Yeshiva College Junior, believes: "The administration should have said something to at least show that they care about our security on and off campus. Since they care about what we do when we are off campus, perhaps they should worry about our security, at least in the surrounding neighborhood."

Chief of University Security Donald Sommers declared that a police investigation is presently pending and "that the NYPD will surely be more attentive to the location of the unfortunate incident." Beyond pointing to the enhanced security on campus, Sommers had little more to say than "the fact remains that someone got stabbed and the students need to take caution."

"Walking up the steps to my apartment, I hardly give the stabbing a second thought," maintains Ari Hoffman, a Sy Syms School for Business Junior and resident of the building harboring the crime scene.

After receiving two stitches in his shoulder and one on his upper arm, Abramowitz was discharged from the hospital mid-afternoon on Friday and he hopes to return to Israel in the near future. "After serving in the Israeli army and leaving unharmed and then getting stabbed on the streets of New York, I feel a need to be back in Israel. Or, at the very least, at another school," he concluded.