A 37-year-old man pleaded not guilty Sunday to attempted murder in a knife attack that wounded five people at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the attack an act of “domestic terrorism.”
Five people were stabbed by an attacker on Saturday evening at the home of an Ultra-Orthodox rabbi during Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, New York. According to the authorities and Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel the suspected attacker entered the residence at around 10 pm and was armed with a knife. Saturday was the seventh night of Hanukkah.
Ramapo police has identified the suspect as Grafton Thomas, 37, of Greenwood Lake in nearby Orange County.
Chief Weidel said the suspect fled the residence on Forshay Road in a 2015 Gray Nissan Sentra and the suspect was located in Harlem and taken into custody by the NYPD sometimes during the mid-night. The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council said the five victims, all Hasidic, were transported to local hospitals with stabing wounds. The incident took place in the house of a Hasidic Rabbi, the council said.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a statement shortly after the mid-night that read in part, “This was a despicable and cowardly act, and I am directing the State Police’s hate crimes task force to immediately investigate and to use every tool available to hold the attacker accountable to the fullest extent of the law. State Police Troopers are currently on the scene assisting local law enforcement.
On Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the New York Police Department was stepping up patrols at several synagogues in the city following a spate of anti-Semitic attacks over the past two weeks.
Three women were also slapped on their faces on Friday morning by another woman, who said that she thought they were Jewish, four days after surveillance video showed a 40-year-old man in a traditional Jewish clothing being punched in the face as well in the area and in the state of New York. Anti-Semitism is an attack on the values of our city — and we will confront it head-on,” De Blasio said in a social media post on Friday evening.
Year-to-date, New York City has seen a spike in hate crimes, with a 20 percent surge in anti-Semitic (Semitic = Jewish) attacks, according to NYPD statistics as of Sunday afternoon. Antisemitism is basically hostility and prejudice towards a Jewish person who holds such position is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is generally considered to be a form of racism against Jewish culture, people, tradition and the same.
There are several organizations that help in monitoring, tracking and responding to anti-Semitism in the United States. The New York Police Department will increase its presence in several Brooklyn neighbourhoods after at least eight possible anti-Semitic incidents this week
The FBI data tracks with the most recent reports from the Anti-defamation league which showed a sharp increase in violent anti-Jewish acts from 2017 to 2018 but a nearly 20% decline in anti-Semitic vandalism, like the scrawling of a swastika on a school wall etc. The FBI has counted 105 violent anti-Semitic crimes in 2018, up more than 40% from the previous year and the highest number since the bureau started filing the reports in 1991.
Anti-Semitic incidents have occurred in a wide variety of locations including places of business, private homes, public areas such as parks, streets and public buildings, Jewish institutions, K-12 schools and college and university campuses where Jewish students go to attain education. The most common locations for anti-Semitic incidents were public areas (476 incidents); K-12 non-Jewish schools (344 incidents); private homes (276 incidents) and Jewish institutions (265 incidents). There are many racist attacks on different cultures including, Hindus, Sikhs, Mexicans, Jewish and on Afro-Americans as well. The US government is trying to stop the hate crimes in the United States and States are working with the federal agency FBI to punish these culprits.
