A 23-year-old man was charged with assault as a hate crime on Monday in connection with the stabbing of a man near Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn last week, according to the police.
The man, Armani Charles, was arrested on Monday night, nearly a week after the eruption in Crown Heights, where many Orthodox Jews live. Mr. Charles made antisemitic comments and then stabbed a 35-year-old man, whose name has not been publicly released, the police said.
The episode, which took place during Hanukkah and just days after a mass shooting at a Jewish holiday celebration in Sydney, Australia, drew swift and ardent condemnation from leaders in the Chabad community, as well as Mayor Eric Adams.
Mr. Charles was charged with assault, attempted assault and aggravated harassment and menacing, all of which are categorized as hate crimes, according to the police. He was to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Tuesday night.
On the afternoon of Dec. 16, the 35-year-old victim had been walking near the intersection of Kingston Avenue and Lincoln Place, around the corner from the Chabad building, when Mr. Charles approached him and the two exchanged words in a seemingly random interaction, the police said.
At some point in the back-and-forth that followed, Mr. Charles made “anti-Jewish statements,” the police said, though they did not specify what he had said.
Mr. Charles walked away from the victim, who followed him down the block. The two then got into another verbal altercation that turned violent and Mr. Charles pulled a knife and stabbed the man in the chest. The man then followed Mr. Charles across the street and down another block before Mr. Charles fled, the police said.
The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released. The police deployed dozens of officers to Crown Heights to search for the attacker.
The episode sent a wave of anxiety through the Chabad community over rising antisemitic attacks, particularly in the wake of the shooting in Australia. That terror attack on Bondi Beach killed 15 people, including a Holocaust survivor and Rabbi Eli Schlanger, one of the event’s organizers and a member of the Chabad of Bondi.
Antisemitic hate crimes have been rising swiftly in the United States since 2021, including attacks in Boulder, Colo., and Washington, D.C., this year. In New York City, there were 305 anti-Jewish bias crimes between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 15, according to Police Department data. That represents 55 percent of all bias crimes reported during that period, and the most against any group tracked in the police data.
In 2024, the number was slightly higher, with 334 anti-Jewish bias crimes between the start of the year and Dec. 15.
Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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