As NYPD detectives tried to determine whether the man who screamed “Allahu Akbar” before stabbing an Asian man and a Jewish man on the Upper West Side should face hate crime charges, community leaders gathered on Friday to condemn the violence, which they believe was fueled by bias and antisemetic rhetoric.
“Whether or not this attack is ultimately prosecuted as a hate crime, its impact is already being felt,” former City Councilman Mark Treyger, currently the Chief Executive Officer for the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, told reporters outside The Jewish Center on W. 86th St. A 50-year-old congregant from The Jewish Center was stabbed in the stomach during Thursday’s violent spree.
“In a city where antisemitism continues to account for the largest share of reported hate crimes, year after year, a reality we desperately wish did not exist, fear has become a lived experience for far too many Jewish New Yorkers,” he said. “That is not normal.”
Charges against Raul Morales, 51, were still pending on Friday as detectives try to unravel the motive behind the back-to-back attacks. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch admitted Thursday that the NYPD’s initial investigation “suggests that mental health may have been a factor,” even though Morales has “no known mental health history with the NYPD.”
Raul Morales, 51, was arrested for separate random attacks on strangers in Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday, July 23, 2026. (Photo Courtesy of Manhattan Shomrim)
UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein suggested Mayor Mamdani fanned the flames of antisemitism earlier in the week when he posted a video vilifying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even though New York City doesn’t have the power to arrest the Israeli leader on war crime charges.
“We want the mayor to stop demonizing the only Jewish state, using the most vilifying rhetoric, focused solely on the only Jewish state and the supporters of it,” Goldstein demanded. “Using language like ‘monstrous,’ using the most horrible, difficult language that inflames, that terrorizes, that causes people to do terrible things and creates the community against whom it’s being said, feeling really being targeted, isolated, and unsafe.”
Goldstein called the video Mamdani put out “political grandstanding.”
“We need to be responsible. This is the largest Jewish community in the world outside Israel,” he said. “His words have profound real-world consequences on us, and shame on him! Shame on him for doing this for perceived political benefit when it has real-world consequences for the Jews of New York. He must stop.”
Eric S. Goldstein of the UJA federation speaks alongside city officials and Jewish community leaders during a press conference regarding an Upper West Side double-stabbing the previous day outside The Jewish Center on W. 86th St. in New York City on Friday, July 24, 2026. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
Attorney General Letitia James said she had spoken with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who asked her “not to draw any conclusions,” regarding Morales’ motives, but still noted she “stands with” Jewish and Asian communities.
“We should stand together against any form of hate, any act of hate in the city and state of New York. It will not be tolerated,” she said.
The violence began when Morales stabbed a 57-year-old Asian man in the back at W. 84th St. and Central Park West around 1:31 p.m., according to law enforcement.
A local building worker showed the Daily News an image of the victim with a knife jutting from his back.
“He was on the corner of W. 84th St., bleeding,” said the worker, who asked that his name be withheld. “He was squatting with the knife sticking out of his back. Crazy man, crazy.”
The NYPD investigates a stabbing at W. 84th St. and Central Park West in Manhattan on Thursday, July 23, 2026 in New York City. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Morales ran off and reappeared minutes later around the corner from The Jewish Center, a prominent Upper West Side synagogue on W. 86th St. and Amsterdam Ave., where he stabbed his Jewish victim in the stomach with a screwdriver.
The victim, identified by police sources and relatives as Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, had just attended Tisha B’Av services and was exiting The Jewish Center from a rear entrance when Morales jumped him, a police source said.
Juan Garcia, a local restaurant worker, watched as the stabber attacked the second victim.
“He was a Jewish guy with a yarmulke,” Garcia, 26, said. “He was on his knees. He was bleeding from the right side. The screwdriver was on the floor.”
The northeast corner of W. 84th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, where a man was randomly stabbed in the chest on July 23, 2026. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Both victims were taken to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital where they’re expected to survive.
“According to victim and witness statements, Morales yelled “Allahu Akbar” during both attacks,” Tisch said.
Allahu Akbar means “God is Most Great” in Arabic.
“I’m just in shock,” Grunhaus’ relative, Avi Grunhaus, who lives in Maryland, told the Daily News. “I got in my car, and I should be in the city in a few hours.”
Rabbi Yossie Levine, Rabbi of the Jewish Center, speaks alongside city officials and Jewish community leaders during a press conference regarding an Upper West Side double-stabbing the previous day outside The Jewish Center on W. 86th St. in New York City on Friday, July 24, 2026. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
Cops alerted to the attacks were flagged down by a good Samaritan who spotted Morales entering a NYCHA apartment building on Amsterdam Ave. near W. 89th St. Cops arrested Morales inside the building, where he lived, according to police sources.
Witnesses told The News a UPS delivery worker was the good Samaritan who tailed Morales and alerted police.
“I want to commend the bravery of a good Samaritan who led our officers to the location where the perpetrator was hiding, as well as our NYPD cops who brought an end to the incident without further injuries,” Tisch said.
Morales has been arrested seven times in New York City, including multiple busts for drug-related offenses, police sources said.