A woman has been charged after a rabbi was stabbed with a syringe in New York City, with another Jewish man assaulted minutes later.
Anna Mochalova, 32, was arrested Saturday and faces two separate charges of assault in the second degree as a hate crime, plus one count of menacing in the second degree as a hate crime, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree and two counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree, according to a criminal complaint cited by CNN.
The suspect is accused of stalking the 26 year-old rabbi – who has preferred to be identified only by his first name, Yosef – and stabbing him in the back near West 47th Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan’s Diamond District at approximately 5.50 p.m. on Wednesday October 21.
Following an investigation by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force and Manhattan Shomrim Safety Patrol, which shared footage of the incident on social media, Mochalova was apprehended and arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday.
Prosecutors alleged at the arraignment that, around five minutes after the attack on Yosef, she intentionally bumped into another Jewish man, 37, on the same street.
“Run away from here,” she allegedly told him, as he felt a painful stinging sensation in his forearm. “I have a gun. I’m going to shoot you.”
Mochalova was further accused of confronting a third man during the same spree, only to leave him alone when he informed her he was Muslim.
“The conduct in these incidents is scary and concerning and the defendant faces serious charges as a result,” Assistant District Attorney Emily Hong said in court Sunday. “She selected both of her targets because she believed them to be Jewish.”
However, Mochalova’s lawyer Lila Carpenter argued that her client was not guilty and suggested she was the victim of a case of mistaken identity.
“These allegations are concerning,” Carpenter told Judge Linda Capitti. “Whether they’re my client’s is a different story.”
Judge Capitti warned the defendant she could face a “serious sentence” if convicted. Mochalova’s bail was ultimately set at $50,000 cash or a $150,000 bond and she is due to return to court on October 29.
Speaking to The New York Post about his ordeal after he emerged from Bellevue Hospital, Yosef said he did not know his attacker but suggested she may have singled him out because he was wearing traditional Orthodox clothing at the time.
“I never met that person before,” he said. “She passes by other people. I’m visibly Jewish.”
“I never experienced antisemitism anywhere in America on a personal level,” he added, explaining that he was “shaken” by the incident but had already been back to the Diamond District to resume his religious vocation, saying of his friends in the local community: “They were in shock when I came back.”
Invoking his grandparents’ history as a source of strength, Yosef said: “They went on to build a Jewish home after the Holocaust.
“If they could survive, I must go back to spread the light. We can’t be intimidated. We have to be strong.”
A local business owner has meanwhile told CBS News: “It could have happened to myself. This is a block with a lot of Jewish people, and everybody is on edge. It’s hard not to be.”
New York Police Department statistics published earlier this month revealed that hate crimes have increased 13 percent for the year to date, compared to the same period in 2025, with 463 incidents recorded – up from 410.
Antisemitic crimes account for 52.9 percent of those incidents, the NYPD said.