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New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced Thursday evening that the force had arrested 51-year-old Raul Morales in connection with both assaults and that he had yelled \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d during both attacks, according to multiple witnesses and a victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NYPD is currently evaluating whether this is a potential hate crime,\u201d Tisch said, noting, \u201cDetectives are continuing to work the case and determine motive.\u201d No other assailants are being sought.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Allen Schwartz of the neighborhood\u2019s Congregation Ohab Zedek told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that one of the victims was a congregant who is visibly Jewish and wears a kippah.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe may go home before Shabbos,\u201d Schwartz said. He said the victim, who was traumatized, did not remember the assailant yelling \u201cAllahu Akbar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the stabbings \u201chorrifying\u201d in a statement on Thursday evening, noting that the perpetrator allegedly yelled \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d during both attacks.<\/p>\n
Nava Silton told JTA she was with the victim Schwartz had spoken to at the Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue on 86th street, for afternoon prayers. <\/p>\n
Minutes after the victim left the synagogue, Silton said she heard there was an attack, but by the time she got to the scene, the victims had been taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
She said the victim did not want his name published.<\/p>\n
Silton visited the victim in the hospital. He told her that a screwdriver had been plunged into the right side of his chest and he pulled it out himself, afraid that he\u2019d keel over and fall onto it. \u201cHe\u2019s just praying that his medical condition does not get worse,\u201d Silton said.<\/p>\n
Though police have not determined a motive, Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote that the stabbing \u201cappears to be another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they\u2019re Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Council Speaker Julie Menin wrote that she is \u201cabsolutely sickened and furious by what appears to be an antisemitic stabbing\u201d on Thursday.<\/p>\n
In her statement, Tisch wrote that \u201cthe initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor,\u201d though the alleged perpetrator \u201chas no known mental health history with the NYPD.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, some critics of Mamdani have tied the attack to the New York City mayor\u2019s sharp criticism of Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis comes a day after Mamdani incited more violence against NYC\u2019s Jews,\u201d wrote Republican City Council member Inna Vernikov, who is Jewish. \u201c@NYCMayor you got blood on your hands!\u201d Vernikov initially wrote to the mayor, \u201cF\u2013 YOU!\u201d She deleted the expletive in a since-edited version of the post.<\/p>\n
Gideon Sa\u2019ar, Israel\u2019s minister of foreign affairs, wrote that the attacks \u201cdid not happen in a vacuum.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cMonths of incitement against the Jewish state from Mamdani have helped create a climate in which Jews are targeted,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, charged Mamdani with \u201cputting Jewish lives in danger in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, UJA-Federation of New York also explicitly called out Mamdani, whom it said \u201cused his official platform to viciously attack Israel, the only Jewish state.\u201d (UJA is a funder of 70 Faces Media, the parent company of New York Jewish Week.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot ignore the dangerous climate created when elected leaders relentlessly portray Israel \u2014 and, by extension, the many Jewish New Yorkers who feel a deep connection to it \u2014 as uniquely evil and illegitimate,\u201d the group wrote.<\/p>\n