An intruder with a knife stormed into the home of a Hasidic rabbi in a New York suburb on Saturday, stabbing and wounding several people, officials said.
The home of the rabbi, Chaim Rottenberg, is in Monsey, N.Y., an area with a large population of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
At 9:50 this eve, a call came in about a mass stabbing at 47 Forshay Road in Monsey (Rockland County; 30 miles North of NYC). It's the house of a Hasidic Rabbi. 5 patients with stab wounds, all Hasidic, were transported to local hospitals.
— OJPAC Hudson Valley (@OJPACHV) December 29, 2019
The stabbing happened during a Hanukkah party, when a man entered the home around 10 p.m., the official said. The attacker fled and was still at large as of midnight.
The local police did not immediately offer information on the attack.
Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley region, said five people were stabbed in the attack, and two were critically wounded. Among the victims was a son of the rabbi.
“The house had many dozens of people in there,” Mr. Gestetner said in a phone interview. “It was a Hanukkah celebration.”
Peggy Green, a Monsey resident who is Jewish, said she was at the Evergreen Kosher Market at around 10 p.m. when she heard that there had been a stabbing nearby on Forshay Road.
Ms. Green said the market, which is usually open until midnight on Saturdays and was busy with people shopping for Hanukkah parties, closed early.
Ms. Green, who lives nearby, said she tried to drive near the rabbi’s home but found Forshay Road blocked off by a long line of ambulances and police cars.
“It’s very scary,” she said, of being Jewish in Rockland County, adding that she thinks synagogues should have more armed security.
Ed Day, the county executive for Rockland County, which is northwest of New York City, condemned the attack.
“Law enforcement in Rockland will leave no stone unturned as they bring those guilty of this crime to swift and severe justice,” Mr. Day said in a statement.
The attack came after a surge in anti-Semitic violence in the New York region. On Friday, the police in New York City stepped up patrols in three Brooklyn neighborhoods after what officials called an “alarming” increase in incidents.
Last month, an Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed just steps away from a local synagogue as he walking to morning prayers. The synagogue’s surveillance cameras showed a vehicle stopping near the man and then the attack on him, according to a manager there.
No one has been charged in that attack, and officials have not determined that it was a bias crime.
Rockland County, a collection of five towns northwest of New York City, has a population of more than 300,000 people. About 31 percent of the population is Jewish, according to the state, and the county has one of the largest concentrations of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the country.
The ultra-Orthodox population has surged particularly in recent years as Hasidic families from Queens and Brooklyn, priced out of their neighborhoods, sought to build communities elsewhere.