The hateful lunatic who stabbed a rabbi with a syringe in the Diamond District was nabbed Saturday â as police revealed she attacked another Jewish man just hours earlier.
Anna Mochalova, 32, was arrested and slapped with a slew of charges, including assault as a hate crime, for stalking and jabbing Yosef, a 26-year-old rabbi, in the back with a needle near West 47th Street and Fifth Avenue around 6 p.m. last week.
Two hours earlier, Mochalova deliberately bumped into a 37-year-old Jewish man on West 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, according to cops.
When he confronted her, she spoke Russian and then stabbed him in the arm with a sharp object, police said.
Both incidents are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force as antisemitic attacks, according to cops.
Terrifying video posted on X by the Manhattan Shomrim shows the suspected attacker stalking Yosef â who is wearing traditional Orthodox garb â around a parked car as he tries to avoid her moments before she stabbed him.
Yosef told The Post he believes he was targeted because he is “visibly Jewish.”
“I never met that person before,” he said. “She passes by other people. I’m visibly Jewish.”
The victim, who requested his last name not be used, was in the Diamond District â where he regularly attempts Jewish outreach on the street â when he was assaulted.
Despite traveling around the country, it was the first time he experienced antisemitism, he said.
“I never experienced antisemitism anywhere in America on a personal level,” he said.
The attack left him undeterred, and he returned to the scene the next day for more outreach â helping Jewish men put on tefillin, small black leather boxes that contain verses of the Torah.
Yosef, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, draws inspiration from their strength.
“They went on to build a Jewish home after the Holocaust,” he said. “If they could survive, I must go back to spread the light.”
The hate-filled assaults came weeks after the NYPD revealed that hate-crimes soared by nearly 13% over the first nine months of the year compared to the same time last year, with anti-Jewish incidents comprising more than half of them.
Mochalova, of Brooklyn, was charged with assault, assault as a hate crime, menacing, aggravated harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon.
She was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday.
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