Five people were injured in an attack during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home in a New York City suburb Saturday night by a man wielding a machete, according to reports. They were taken to the hospital, but the attack left two in critical condition, per CNN. There were about 100 people in the home at the time of the attack.
Police arrested an African-American suspect. The victims were Hasidic Jews, according to a tweet by The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley Region. CNN also reported that the county in which the stabbing occurred, Rockland County, has the largest population of Jews per capita compared to all other U.S. counties.
“Let me be clear: anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement, per CNN.
Fox News reported the assault continued a string of incidents in recent weeks that have included beatings of Jewish people on the streets of New York City and a massacre at a kosher grocery store in nearby Jersey City, New Jersey. The news outlet initially reported three people had been stabbed with a knife just before 10 p.m. Saturday. The home is on Forshay Road in Monsey, New York, a town of about 18,000 residents and 35 miles north of New York City.
It wasn’t the first attack recently on the Jewish community in Monsey. The Journal News of Rockland County reported that a 30-year-old man on his way to morning prayers was beaten and stabbed last month.
Fox News also reported that “video posted on social media from Monsey showed emergency responders rushing victims to ambulances, surrounded by the flashing red lights of numerous emergency vehicles.” It also reported that “a suspect was seen leaving in a gray Nissan Sentra vehicle.”
One of the victims was stabbed at least six times, according to reports. The fifth/least severe case had a cut in his hand.
“I was praying for my life,” Aron Kohn, 65, who was inside the house at the time, told The New York Times. “He started attacking people right away as soon as he came in the door. We didn’t have time to react at all.”
