Man charged with hate crime in NYC synagogue attack yelled ‘F–k the Jews’ at cops

The man arrested for wildly disrupting a Sabbath service at a Midtown synagogue while assaulting two people told cops after he was apprehended, “F–k the Jews,” according to police.

Police have filed hate crime charges against Larry Montes, 46, who attacked a congregant and a security guard as he went berserk and charged down the aisle at Central Synagogue, disrupting the sanctity of a peaceful Sabbath service, officials said Saturday.

“Do you know who I am?” Montes ranted as he punched a 63-year-old woman and headbutted a 65-year-old security guard as he was being escorted out of the house of worship at Lexington Ave. at E. 55th St. Friday evening.

“Nobody here is real!” he screamed, witnesses told police.

Friday’s blow-up is the latest attack targeting Jews to hit the city, which has seen an 8% jump in antisemitic crimes this year, police said.

During his caught-on-camera tirade, Montes also damaged synagogue property, including an ornate Shabbat candle holder valued at $20,000, officials said.

Cops charged him with hate crime assault, assault, criminal mischief as a hate crime, disruption of a religious service, harassment, and aggravated harassment, cops said. His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Saturday.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch called Montes’ attack “deeply painful.”

“A place of worship should never be a crime scene,” Tisch said on X. “I understand the sanctity of this space and its meaning for congregants.”

“Central Synagogue is where I grew up,” she said. “In joy and in sorrow, it has always been a place of comfort and peace.”

Montes, who was sitting with the congregation, stormed to the front of the synagogue at about 6:10 p.m. as a pair of worshippers were in the middle of a musical performance.

A livestream of the Shabbat service shows a burly Montes, wearing a blue polo shirt and glasses and sporting a beard, storming up the synagogue’s central aisle in a rage toward the bimah, or raised platform where rabbis read the Torah.

The two women performing a song flee to safety as Montes reaches the bimah, spins around and marches back down the aisle, this time escorted from behind by a security guard, while furiously pounding the air with his fist and ranting.

Montes lives in Mott Haven in the Bronx, more than six miles from the synagogue. It wasn’t immediately clear why he was visiting the Central Synagogue.

The woman he punched declined to comment when reached Saturday.

“(I’m) resting now,” she said. “Have a great day, honey.”

Relatives said Montes is a troubled person whose struggles have worsened since the recent death of his grandmother, who raised him.

“He’s not a racist,” Montes’ cousin, who wished not to be named, told the Daily News. “He just needs help.”

“He hasn’t been OK after our grandmother passed away,” the relative added. “Since he’s been alone, he’s been acting really weird. He’s been talking to us in the family, saying (weird things).”

“I told him to look for help,” she said.

Montes had been arrested three times for robbery in 2023 and 2019 before Friday’s arrest, police said.

Congregants at the Midtown synagogue didn’t let the violence stop them from finishing the Shabbat service, according to Central Synagogue’s senior rabbi.

“It is a testament to the strength of our community that services resumed immediately, and we refused to let this disruption extinguish the spirit of Shabbat,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl and Jon May and Marcia Caban, the temple’s respective president and executive director, wrote in an email to congregants.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization, said attacks like this are caused when antisemitism is ignored and is “dismissed as exaggeration”

“For Jews in New York, the sanctuary of the synagogue is meant to be a refuge, not a place where faith and fear are forced into uneasy proximity,” the organization said in a statement. “Violence on Shabbat is never only about the victims in the room; it is an assault on the very possibility of Jewish life lived openly, together and without dread.

“Attacks like this are never isolated eruptions,” the statement continued. “They take root in a climate where antisemitism is dismissed as exaggeration, where language that targets Jews is excused or ignored, and where ancient resentments are dressed in the language of the present. Moral clarity is not only needed in the aftermath of violence, but at the first hint of the old poison returning in new forms.”

Mayor Mamdani said he was “horrified” to learn of the attack.

“I am grateful to Central Synagogue’s security team for swiftly stepping in to prevent more violence, and to the NYPD sergeant who apprehended him and took him into custody,” Mamdani said Saturday. “Our administration will always stand against bigotry in all its forms. We will use every tool at our disposal to confront antisemitism and keep Jewish New Yorkers — and all New Yorkers — safe.”

Governor Hochul called the incident “appalling” and said, “Jewish New Yorkers have every right to worship openly, proudly, and without fear.”

Council Speaker Julie Menin said antisemitic attacks like the one that occurred at Central Synagogue have become all too common in New York.

“From 73 swastikas defacing a Brooklyn playground to a Jewish man stabbed after leaving Tisha B’Av services last month, horrifying acts of antisemitism are soaring in our city,” Menin posted on X. “From Hebrew school to my father’s memorial service, Central Synagogue is where my family and thousands of others worship. It is our sanctuary and a place of solace. Armed guards stand outside on the High Holidays as we have to explain to our children why they are there. Now, a congregant was assaulted during Shabbat services in an incident that has resulted in hate crime charges.”

“When my mother and grandmother came to New York City after surviving the Holocaust, they were welcomed with open arms,” she added. “What is happening now in our city is unrecognizable and horrifying.”

By the end of July, the NYPD had investigated 205 confirmed antisemitic hate crimes in the city — 16 more than this time last year.

The number of antisemitic hate crimes in the city makes up nearly two-thirds of the 360 hate crimes investigated in the city this year, officials said.

“Antisemitism is real and it’s increasing by the day,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) added as he thanked the NYPD for the quick arrest. “No American, regardless of their religion, should feel unsafe in a house of worship. We must come together to ensure that no space is left for these types of antisemitic beliefs or acts.”

“All New Yorkers and all Americans must be able to worship freely with no fear of danger for themselves or their families,” Schumer said.

With Rocco Parascandola