During a Chanukah gathering in the home of Rabbi Chaim L. Rottenberg, in the Forshay neighborhood in Monsey, N.Y., an individual with a scarf covering his face entered just before 10 p.m., brandishing a knife and began stabbing some of the Chassidic Jews gathered for the celebration.
The stabbing took place at a community rabbi’s house. According to eye-witness Jack Stein: “I heard from eyewitnesses that the rabbi had finished lighting the candles, entered his room, and then at that moment the front door of the house was opened. A dark-skinned man came into the house, didn’t say a word – just pulled out a machete that was in a leather sheath and just started hacking.
“Unbelievable hysteria broke out, someone threw a chair at him,” Stein continued in an interview with Channel 13 News. “The one who threw the chair probably sparked even more anger in him, and the attacker turned on him and stabbed him three more times. From there, he headed to the kitchen, where there was a man who probably turned around in the yard, a man who has slight retardation and was stunned and paralyzed with fear; he struck him the hardest.”
A Chassidic man threw a table at the assailant and chased him from the home.
The attacker then attempted to enter the adjacent synagogue, but was locked out by the people there, who barricaded themselves inside. Five people were stabbed, at least one in critical condition. The assailant fled in a gray car and was reported to have been placed under arrest in New York City two hours later.
The attack comes on the heels of the antisemitic massacre at a kosher grocery in Jersey City on December 10th, and a string of antisemitic attacks in New York City just days before.
Below a witness at the scene gives her account:
