{"id":381432,"date":"2026-10-24T04:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T04:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/381432\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T04:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T04:30:10","slug":"jewish-man-returns-to-wrapping-tefillin-after-suspected-nyc-hate-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/381432\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish man returns to wrapping tefillin after suspected NYC hate crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan<\/a>, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights, was back on the same street where he\u2019d been assaulted, popping into Diamond District businesses as usual to help employees wrap tefillin.<\/p>\n

Yosef, 26, who did not share his last name to maintain his privacy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was back on 47th Street on Thursday afternoon, the day after the stabbing, without missing a beat in his Monday-through-Thursday rounds even as police investigate the incident as a possible hate crime<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A number of the people he visited pieced together that the widely circulated footage of a man being stabbed the previous night was of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were in shock. They were obviously scared for me,\u201d said Yosef, who has been wrapping tefillin and distributing Shabbat candles to Jewish Diamond District employees for about three years. He started that routine when his father, a Chabad Jew who works in the jewelry business, realized he needed his son\u2019s help to handle the demand for those acts. Yosef told Chabad.org that he was \u201cstill shaken\u201d by the attack a day later.<\/p>\n

‘We can’t allow hate to stop us,’ Yosef urges<\/p>\n

Still, he told JTA, \u201cWe can\u2019t allow some hate to stop us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MembersMembers of the NYPD and Federal Law Enforcement create a security perimeter on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, U.S., September 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS\/BRENDAN MCDERMID)<\/p>\n

Yosef said he felt it was important to communicate that message because \u201cwe need more mitzvahs in the world, we need more light in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yosef was taken to Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., where medical staff assessed that he had no internal bleeding and would not need stitches. No arrests have been made, but the assailant has been described as a woman in her 40s.<\/p>\n

The attack has renewed concerns about security that have faced Chabad adherents and institutions, which often host public events and maintain a visible street presence. But the threat didn\u2019t diminish their presence in midtown Manhattan on Friday.<\/p>\n

Multiple Chabad men stood under a bright yellow tent on the sidewalk wrapping tefillin for a steady stream of workers in the heavily Jewish Diamond District.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rebbe says that the way to defeat darkness is only through the addition of light,\u201d said Shmuel Cohen, who was handing out small photographs of the movement\u2019s late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.<\/p>\n

Cohen told JTA that he had not heard about the attack that took place just down the block two days earlier, though his partner under the sidewalk tent had. Cohen said that the best way to respond is through \u201cthe observance of Torah and mitzvot without being ashamed of our Judaism but presenting it to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chabad officials meet with NYPD to discuss security amid rise in attacks<\/p>\n

Also on Friday, Chabad officials met with New York Police Department<\/a> representatives for their annual meeting about security ahead of Chabad\u2019s international conference in Crown Heights<\/a>, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the movement is headquartered. The conference begins on November 5.<\/p>\n

Chabad has been targeted in multiple high-profile attacks in the past year, including the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia in December. The following month, a man rammed a car into the doors of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, raising further questions over how the movement should balance its commitment to making its events accessible with security.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jews have been targeted in more than half of hate crimes committed in New York City in 2026, despite making up about 12% of the city\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecurity is our top priority. Our goal is to provide an environment where every participant feels safe and can fully experience the purpose and spirit of the gathering,\u201d said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, a top organizer of the upcoming conference.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the attack, Yosef said he is not concerned about going out in public as a visibly Jewish person and doesn\u2019t plan to change how he approaches the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was wearing the same clothes on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t change my routine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3862,79,7702,9,24,56,63,65,64,260,139750,901],"class_list":["post-381432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-antisemitism","tag-diaspora","tag-judaism","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-stabbing","tag-teffilin","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}