A 26-year-old Jewish man was followed and stabbed by a woman on a crowded Midtown street during Wednesday evening’s rush hour, according to police sources.
The victim, who was wearing traditional Jewish clothing, was walking along Fifth Avenue near West 47th Street in the Diamond District shortly before 6 p.m. when a Russian-speaking woman began following him, the sources said.
Disturbing video shared on X by Manhattan Shomrim appears to show the suspected attacker pursuing the man around a parked car as he tried to get away. Several pedestrians can be seen passing by on the sidewalk.
As he neared a grocery store, the victim felt a sharp, needle-like prick in the lower right side of his back, according to police sources.
He told investigators that he believed he had been stabbed with a syringe. It was not immediately known whether the syringe contained any substance, the sources said.
The man was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was reported to be in stable condition.
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The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the troubling Midtown attack.
Moshe Spern, president of the United Jewish Teachers, sharply criticized Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the incident.
“Mayor Mamdani this is on you,” Spern wrote angrily on X Thursday morning. “Another Jew stabbed in broad daylight in Midtown.”
The stabbing occurred just weeks after the NYPD reported that hate crimes had increased by nearly 13% during the first nine months of the year compared with the same period last year. Anti-Jewish incidents made up more than half of those cases.
In July, authorities said, a man ranting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed a Jewish man and an Asian man on the Upper West Side.
Prosecutors said a search of the suspect’s phone “revealed text messages containing antisemitic statements.”