2026 Upper West Side stabbing attack

On July 23, 2026, an individual was arrested for stabbing two individuals outside of a synagogue on the Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan with a screwdriver. The attack occurred close to Central Park and the incident is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

Attack

There were two separate stabbings carried out by the same perpetrator, with the first stabbing occurring at 84th Street and Central Park West, where a 57-year-old Asian man was stabbed in the back with a knife, and the second stabbing at 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where the assailant stabbed a 50-year-old Jewish man in the torso with a screwdriver. The second stabbing took place half a block away from a Jewish community center in a neighborhood known for having a large Jewish community. The attack occurred on the solemn fast day of Tisha B'Av, a Jewish day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem. Initially due to the nature of the holiday which involves fasting, onlookers initially thought the Jewish victim who was wearing a kippah at the time, collapsed from not eating for hours prior to seeing him holding napkins by his chest. The stabbing victim, who according to witnesses was identifiably Jewish and had just left the Jewish Center, a local synagogue up the street where he had attended services marking Tisha B'av before being stabbed, pulled the screwdriver out of his chest himself out of fear he would fall over on top of the object.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that witness and victim statements report the alleged perpetrator yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the two separate stabbing attacks. Police Commissioner Tisch and Mayor Zohran Mamdani have both speculated that mental health may have been a factor in the stabbings.

After the attacks, the perpetrator fled on foot, leaving the knife behind at the scene and barricaded themselves in their apartment building where the police apprehended them.

Reactions

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he is thankful the perpetrator is being held accountable and hope(s) he will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin released a statement in response to the attacks that said: "I am absolutely sickened and furious by what appears to be an antisemitic stabbing on the Upper West Side. While we await additional details to be confirmed, we know that what is happening in our city is abhorrent."

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement that she stood beside both the Asian and Jewish communities and that quote: “Asian New Yorkers, like Jewish New Yorkers, have endured waves of hate-fuelled violence in recent years,” she wrote on X. “Hate rarely stops with one group. New York will continue confronting it wherever it appears.”

Several Jewish groups linked Mayor Mamdani's recent video calling for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his other rhetoric around Jews and Israel to the July 23 incident.

Nily Rozic, an Israeli-American state assemblymember in New York City said with reference to Mayor Mamdani: “If you can’t fully condemn calls to 'globalize the intifada,' you should be prepared to confront the normalizing of that rhetoric. Words inflame, embolden, and lead to violence against Jewish communities."

The UJA Federation of New York released a statement in response to the attack, and criticized Mayor Mamdani saying quote: "These attacks came soon after Mayor Mamdani once again used his official platform to viciously attack Israel, the only Jewish state. We cannot ignore the dangerous climate created when elected leaders relentlessly portray Israel - and, by extension, the many Jewish New Yorkers who feel a deep connection to it - as uniquely evil and illegitimate."

References

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