Those who know him all use the same Yiddish words to describe 72-year-old Yosef Neumann, who was brutally stabbed at a Chanukah celebration in Monsey, N.Y., and remains in critical condition: “He is a fartzeitishe Chassidisher Yid,” a Chassidic Jew from a bygone era, an unending font of Chassidic stories, anecdotes and adages. Although he suffered from health conditions in recent months and used a walker, when the attacker entered the Chanukah celebration, he tried to fight him back with his cane and even attempted to throw a table at him.

To many regular worshippers at the synagogue he frequented, the spiritual center of the Kosson Chassidic group to which his family had belonged for generations, he was known as a persistent collector of tzedakah for the poor. With a bag in hand, he would ask everyone who entered the synagogue for a donation in Hungarian-accented English or Yiddish.

To the close-knit group of young Chassidim who gravitated around him for decades, he is an impressive scholar, well-versed in all areas of Jewish teaching, from Talmud to Kabbalah.

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And to the poor families in Israel who benefited from his funds, he was an agent of mercy.

“He never kept a penny for himself,” revealed Yosef Eliyahu Gluck, a close friend and hero of the horrific episode who successfully chased away the attacker with a table. “He used to go through a lot of effort to take care of ‘his families,’ people everyone else overlooked. He used to exchange the money he collected for crisp $100 bills to make sure the families would have no problem using the money as soon as they got it.”

The attack took place after Rabbi Chaim L. Rottenberg, the Rebbe of Kosson, had kindled the menorah on the seventh night of the holiday in the presence of family and community members. As those gathered began to leave and make their way to the synagogue next door, witnesses say the attacker calmly walked in, drew his weapon and said: “No one is going anywhere.”

He then began swinging his machete wildly at people in the room, injuring five. In a press conference today, the family detailed the numerous serious wounds that Neumann suffered in the attack. He sustained multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, a sliced neck and a fractured arm.