{"id":957058,"date":"2026-07-24T21:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/957058\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:55:17","slug":"nyc-jewish-leaders-blast-mamdani-after-upper-west-side-stabbings-call-for-hate-crime-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/957058\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Jewish leaders blast Mamdani after Upper West Side stabbings, call for hate crime charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

City\u00a0Jewish leaders Friday demanded Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> \u201cstop fanning the flames of hatred and division\u201d after a\u00a0nut\u00a0stabbed a religious man in a suspected antisemitic hate crime\u00a0on the Upper West Side<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but Hizzoner offered nothing more than a canned tepid response.<\/p>\n

Raul Morales, 51, allegedly yelled \u201cAllahu Akbar!\u201d<\/a> as he attacked the two victims \u2014\u00a0Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, a 50-year-old Jewish man, and\u00a0Chok Sung, a 57-year-old\u00a0Asian man \u2014 in vicious separate attacks blocks from Central Park and minutes apart Thursday afternoon, police said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re horrified and heartbroken by yesterday\u2019s attacks. But to be clear, we\u2019re no longer surprised,\u201d said UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein said at a press conference\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks to reporters on July 22, 2026. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the mayor of New York repeatedly uses his platform to relentlessly single out and demonize Israel, the world\u2019s only Jewish state, and calls those who support it \u2018monsters\u2019,\u2019 he contributes to a climate in which Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly targeted and unsafe,\u201d Goldstein claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani, stop fanning the flames of hatred and division. The consequences are not abstract, they are playing out on our streets. But make no mistake, we are not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a slew of top city officials swiftly issued statements condemning Thursday\u2019s attacks\u00a0fewer than two hours after\u00a0they\u00a0occurred, Mamdani did not address\u00a0them\u00a0until after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch shared details of the case hours later.<\/p>\n

And even then, the mayor nearly copy and pasted the language from the top cop\u2019s post.<\/p>\n

Given a chance by The Post on Friday to take a strong stance against such attacks, Mamdani continued to give his formulaic takes on such situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, first and foremost, I want to make clear that this is a city where we have no tolerance for hatred of any kind, the hatred of someone on the basis of their faith, their background, natural identity,\u2019\u2019 he said when asked if he had a response to the\u00a0 outrage from the Jewish leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a city that not only has no tolerance for it, but will also hold anyone who is found to be perpetrating it fully accountable,\u2019\u2019 Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so relieved to hear that both of these victims are in stable condition, and I wish them a full and speedy recovery,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, the early NYPD investigations indicate that mental health may have been a role. They are also evaluating whether both of these constitute hate crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cops charged Morales Friday afternoon\u00a0with attempted murder as a hate crime in the attack on\u00a0Grunhaus, who was stabbed in the chest with a screwdriver.<\/p>\n

The suspect Raul Morales is escorted by police from the crime scene. Manhattan Shomrim<\/p>\n

The attack on\u00a0Sung, who had been knifed in the back moments earlier,\u00a0was not deemed a hate crime by the NYPD and resulted in a straight attempted-murder rap, among other charges.<\/p>\n

Officers\u00a0executed a search warrant on Morales\u2019 Upper West Side and\u00a0were\u00a0scouring the scene of the attacks for video footage to help bolster their case against him,\u00a0including involving the suspected hate crime, law-enforcement sources said.<\/p>\n

The suspect\u00a0also\u00a0was randomly screaming, \u201cIslam!\u201d in the area about half an hour after officers responded to the first stabbing, according to a witness.<\/p>\n

Investigators hauled of a Koran and a copy of an acclaimed biography on Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara along with other items from Morales\u2019 apartment Friday.<\/p>\n

Moshe Grunhaus is pictured in an undated photo. He was identified as one of the stabbing attack victims. Facebook\/Moshe Grunhaus<\/p>\n

Goldstein noted to The Post that the Muslim mayor\u2019s deeply disturbing anti-Israel rhetoric included blustering that he would try to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes when he comes to Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Experts roundly scoffed at the threat as delusionary, and even a red-faced \u00a0Mamdani eventually had to cop to the fact that he did not have the power to arrest the PM.<\/p>\n

\u201cA slick political strategy is not the way to govern the city,\u201d Goldstein fumed, citing the social-media video that Mamdani used to \u00a0threaten Bibi. \u201cHis words have meaning, and as the mayor of New York, you have incredible reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to behave responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n

A victim seen at the scene of a stabbing in the Upper West Side on Friday, July 24, 2026. Facebook \/ Lidia Lander<\/p>\n

An investigator collects evidence at the scene of a stabbing on Thursday, July 24, 2026. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n

Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, added to The Post, \u201cHe\u2019s raising the temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that he\u2019s just not lowering it; he\u2019s raising it,\u2019\u2019 Berman said. \u201cHe has absolutely failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Mamdani\u2019s rant this past week against the prime minister of the only Jewish state, do New Yorkers feel less safe or more safe? Do they feel unified or divided?\u201d<\/p>\n

Micah Lasher, a state assemblyman who is poised to be the next congressman of the district where the attacks occurred, said, \u201cI beseech all those in a position of power, including our mayor, to hear our cry from the heart, to please help take the temperature down.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

A view of the crime scene in the Upper West Side on Thursday, July 24, 2026. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n

A cop stands where the crime took place on West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, added, \u201cZohran Mamdani, your incitement is putting Jewish lives in danger<\/a> in New York, home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have spent months fueling hatred, demonizing Israel and legitimizing hostility toward Jews.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow take responsibility for the consequences. Every time you pour more fuel on this fire, you make violence more likely. Stop the incitement. Before more people get hurt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City\u00a0Jewish leaders Friday demanded Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u201cstop fanning the flames of hatred and division\u201d after a\u00a0nut\u00a0stabbed a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":957059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,12648,4219,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,8626,67,586,132,5230,36246,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-957058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-antisemitism","tag-crime","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-stabbings","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-upper-west-side","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116977187320295629","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}