After punching a rabbi in Queens, suspect charged with hate crime, police say
The incident occurred on Holocaust Remembrance Day
An NYPD car parked on a city street. Photo by Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images
By Hannah Feuer January 28, 2026
A 32-year-old man has been arrested after a rabbi was verbally harassed and assaulted in Forest Hills, Queens on Tuesday, according to police.
The suspect, Queens resident Eric Zafra-Grosso, was charged with assault and aggravated harassment as hate crimes, police said. An investigation is ongoing.
On Tuesday afternoon, the suspect approached the rabbi, who is also 32, at the intersection of Queens Blvd. and 71st Ave. He made antisemitic comments, then punched the rabbi in the chest and near his face, according to police. The rabbi did not know his attacker, police said.
The suspect fled the scene to a nearby train station, where police arrested him, according to Queens Shomrim, the neighborhood watch group.
The rabbi’s identity has not been made public. An erroneous report identified Rabbi Colonel Henry Soussan as the victim. Reached by phone Wednesday, Soussan said that was false, and that he had not been to Queens in nearly 30 years.
New York officials quickly issued condemnations of the incident, which occurred on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“I’m horrified by the antisemitic assault on a rabbi in Forest Hills. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, New Yorkers were confronted with a painful truth: antisemitism is not a thing of the past—it is a present danger that demands action from all of us,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted to X. “There is no place for antisemitism in our city. I stand in solidarity with Jewish New Yorkers and my administration is committed to rooting out this hatred.”
The assault occurred a few miles from the synagogue Agudath Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, where earlier this month protesters chanted, “We support Hamas here.” Mamdani drew scrutiny for issuing a delayed condemnation of the chants.
Other New York leaders also condemned Tuesday’s attack.
“We are outraged by the antisemitic attack that occurred in our district, in which a rabbi was verbally harassed, physically assaulted, and threatened for being Jewish,” read a joint statement issued by six local elected officials. “This was a targeted act of hate, and it has no place in our community or anywhere in New York City.”
“Yet another sickening reminder of the scale of the hatred we are confronting,” Mark Levine, the city’s Jewish comptroller, posted to X. “We need everyone in this city united in combatting this.”
Earlier this month, Julie Menin, New York’s first Jewish speaker of the City Council, introduced a five-point plan to combat antisemitism, including the creation of a hotline to report antisemitic incidents.
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