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What you need to know today
- The suspect accused of stabbing a Jewish man was charged with hate crimes. Raul Morales, who was arrested for the stabbings of a Jewish man and an Asian man Thursday on the Upper West Side, was arraigned Friday on two counts of attempted murder as a hate crime and other charges. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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Netanyahu accused Mamdani of “fomenting hate” before the stabbings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu connected the stabbings with a video by Mayor Zohran Mamdani that called on the U.S. government to arrest Netanyahu for war crimes. “I don’t think it’s accidental that after he made this hate speech against Israel and against me, the next day, a Jew is stabbed coming out of a synagogue,” Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. Mamdani responded during a press conference Monday morning that he was “not interested in getting into a back and forth with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” adding that one of his top priorities was “keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe.”
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Jewish leaders rallied against Mamdani. Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, who is Jewish, gathered with Jewish residents and right-wing activists on Sunday for a rally organized by #EndJewHatred near the site of the stabbing. “There is no question that Zohran Mamdani’s antisemitic rhetoric has fueled all of the antisemitism and the violence we now see in the city,” Blakeman said, according to The New York Post.
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A former City Hall aide sued for anti-Palestinian discrimination under Eric Adams. Hasibe Rashid alleged in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit that former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration pushed her out of her job because she is Palestinian and advocated for more recognition of Palestinian suffering, Politico reported. Rashid says Adams adopted an “anti-Gaza edict” and honored IDF soldiers at City Hall while refusing to take meetings that would “discuss Palestine and Gaza.” She is demanding reinstatement as a policy adviser in the mayor’s office — where she would serve Mamdani, Adams’ pro-Palestinian successor — and damages over $1 million, citing “significant emotional distress.” The city Law Department and Joseph Varlack, who is accused in the lawsuit of terminating Rashid, declined to comment to Politico.
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Some Jewish New Yorkers are leaving because of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Jews who have lived in New York for years told The Times of Israel they moved as far as Israel and as close as New Jersey and Connecticut because of antisemitic crimes, anti-Zionist sentiment and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power.
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