Intruder stabs 5 at N.Y. rabbi’s home amid rising violence against Jews.
MONSEY, N.Y. — A knifewielding man stormed into a rabbi’s home and stabbed five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City, an ambush the governor said Sunday was an act of domestic terrorism fueled by intolerance and a “cancer” of growing hatred in America.
Police tracked a fleeing suspect to Manhattan and made an arrest within hours of the attack Saturday night in Monsey. Grafton Thomas had blood all over his clothing and smelled of bleach when officers stopped him, prosecutors said.
Thomas, 37, was arraigned Sunday and pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary. Bail was set at $5 million and he remains jailed.
Authorities have not provided a motive. Thomas’ criminal history includes an arrest for assaulting a police horse, according to an official briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. A lawyer representing Thomas at the arraignment said he had no convictions.
The FBI is seeking a warrant to obtain his online accounts and were scouring digital evidence, the official said. They are also looking into whether he has a history of mental illness.
The stabbings on the seventh night of Hanukkah left one person critically wounded, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo said. The rabbi’s son also was injured, he said.
The attack was the latest in a string of violence targeting Jews in the region, including a Dec. 10 massacre at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey that left six dead, including the two attackers.
Cuomo said Saturday’s savagery was the 13th antiSemitic attack in New York since Dec. 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.”
Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said it was unclear why the rabbi’s house was targeted.
The stabbings happened around 10 p.m. Saturday at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, located next door to his Congregation Netzach Yisroel synagogue.
“The guy came in wielding a big knife, sword, machete — I don’t know what it was,” said Josef Gluck. “He took it out of his holder, started swinging.”
Rabbi Motti Seligson, the media director of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, said witnesses told him that people fled the house and went to the synagogue where they locked themselves in. Rabbi Rottenberg led the service at the synagogue later, he said.
Weidel said a witness saw the suspect fleeing in a car and alerted police to the license plate number. Police entered that information into a database and used plate reader technology to track the vehicle to Manhattan, where Thomas was arrested.
Monsey, about 35 miles north of New York City, is one of several Hudson Valley communities that has seen a rising population of Hasidic Jews in recent years.