US: KNIFE ATTACK AT RABBI’S HOME
New York attack follows other such incidents in region
As people gathered at a rabbi’s home north of New York City to celebrate the seventh night of Hanukkah, police said a man stabbed and wounded five before fleeing in a vehicle.
MONSEY, NEW YORK: A man stabbed five people as they gathered to celebrate Hanukkah at a rabbi’s home in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City, an ambush the governor said on Sunday was an act of domestic terrorism fuelled by intolerance and a “cancer” of hatred growing in America.
Police arrested a suspect in Manhattan within hours of Saturday night’s attack in Monsey. Grafton E. Thomas, 37, had blood all over his clothing and smelled of bleach, according to prosecutors. He was arraigned on Sunday morning and pleaded not guilty. Bail was set at $5 million.
The stabbings on the seventh night of Hanukkah left one person critically wounded, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. The rabbi’s son was also injured, he said. Authorities have not provided a motive.
The attack was the latest in a string of violence targeting Jews in the region, including a December 10 massacre at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey. Last month in Monsey, a man was stabbed while walking to a synagogue.
Cuomo said Saturday’s savagery was the 13th anti-Semitic attack in New York since December
8 and endemic of “an American cancer on the body politic.”
“This is violence spurred by hate, it is mass violence and I consider this an act of domestic terrorism,” Cuomo said. “Let’s call it what it is.”
The stabbings happened around 10 pm local time on Saturday at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, located next door to his Congregation Netzach Yisroel synagogue. The large house on Forshay Road remained cordoned off with yellow crimescene tape on Sunday.