Jewish watchdog urges NYPD to increase officers in hot spots after synagogue attack

JTA – A Jewish security watchdog is doubling down on safety measures in the wake of a Friday night attack against worshippers at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, calling on police to identify cutting-edge tactics to identify hot spots for potential hate crimes and to place more officers in those areas. 

But Mitchell Silber, chief executive of the Community Security Initiative (CSI), acknowledged that preventing situations like Friday’s is not straightforward. 

“It’s difficult, because you’re trying to balance being open for the public for worship, and at the same time, keeping our sanctuary safe,” Silber told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) on Sunday. 

On Friday night Larry Montes, 46, was able to make his way into Central Synagogue’s main sanctuary and disrupt the service with antisemitic slurs, before he was apprehended by a security guard. Silber said he’s been in contact with Central Synagogue security leadership about the incident and understood that Montes had not initially raised any red flags when he’d entered the building. 

“There wasn’t something so out of place that it required them to pull him aside, but they noticed him as not someone they were familiar with,” he said. According to CSI, the synagogue’s team was able to quickly defuse the situation anyway due to the training it had received. 

In the wake of the incident, Silber said the CSI is sending a bulletin to synagogues about steps to improve synagogue safety, a copy of which was shown to JTA. 

The CSI has begun discussions with the NYPD about using tools like “datamining, crime cluster mapping, and pre-emptively deploying against hot spots” in order to prevent hate crimes before they can happen. The CSI coordinates security for Jewish institutions and communities in the New York area, and is jointly funded by the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council. (70 Faces Media, the parent company of the JTA, receives UJA funding.) 

The CSI bulletin is also encouraging other synagogues to partner with the Community Security Service, another Jewish nonprofit that trains congregants to volunteer as greeters who can provide more personalised discernment of possible threats. 

“Central Synagogue isn’t Park East, Park East isn’t KJ, KJ isn’t Congregation Beth Elohim – they’re all so different, and that’s why having members of the synagogue trained can really be a force multiplier,” Silber said, listing some of the city’s most prominent congregations. 

In the incident on Friday night, Montes yelled during the service, disrupting it, and then struck a 63-year-old congregant and headbutted a member of security personnel who was escorting him out. 

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the congregation’s senior rabbi, was away for a family event when the incident occurred, according to The New York Times. But she wrote on Instagram that the security director “heroically restrained and escorted” Montes out of the synagogue within one minute of him disrupting the service. 

Secure Community Network (SCN), a North American Jewish security nonprofit, has similarly recommended pairing hired guards with volunteer members who know the community more intimately. 

Ahead of high holy day services, the SCN is offering a series of webinars that emphasise situational awareness and how to respond to active threats. “Knowing what to do during a disruption, let alone a physical attack, is a necessity – not just for our organisations, but for each member of the community,” said Michael Masters, SCN’s national director and chief executive. 

Montes has three previous arrests in New York City, each for a robbery between 2019 and 2023, according to police.  

He was arrested at the scene and arraigned in criminal court immediately that night, where, according to police, he was charged with four counts of assault as a hate crime, two counts of assault, criminal mischief as a hate crime, criminal mischief, disruption of a religious service, criminal trespassing as a hate crime, two counts of aggravated harassment, and two counts of harassment. 

The District Attorney’s office requested bail at $50 000 cash (R810 729) with $150 000 (R2.3 million) bond, and the judge set bail at $10 000 cash (R162 146) with $30 000 (R 486 437) bond. Montes’ next court date is 20 August, according to the DA’s office. 

The attack comes as antisemitic hate crimes in New York City have risen by 8.5% compared with 2025, as of the end of July. Debate has swirled this year over whether North American synagogues need to step up their security in the mould of European congregations in the wake of attacks like the attempted one in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in which a man drove a fireworks-laden truck into a synagogue. 

A number of politicians have weighed in to condemn Friday’s attack. 

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, wrote, “When American Jews say they feel unsafe, this is why. Antisemitism is real and it’s increasing by the day.” 

Some have ascribed a lack of safety to rhetoric used by the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, a long-time Israel critic who turned heads with his recent video panning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, called the attack “a direct result of Mayor Mamdani’s sustained campaign of incitement” in a post on X. 

Meanwhile, some of Mamdani’s Jewish allies have pointed out that a Facebook profile that appears to belong to Montes has shared a number of posts criticising the mayor.  

Mamdani wrote that he was “horrified by the assault” at the synagogue, and that all New Yorkers “must be able to observe their religion without fear of violence”. 

Montes’ social media posts include sharing a video of a Prager U commentator taking down Israel critics and multiple photos that suggest support for Israel, including a hand shaded with the Puerto Rican flag shaking another hand shaded with the Israeli flag. 

His aunt, who lives in Puerto Rico, told the New York Post that her nephew “might not have been in his right mind” and that he has expressed a desire to become Jewish.  

“I told him he had to be careful with that because those things are sacred – you have to approach them seriously,” she told The Post in Spanish. 

A woman named Michele Anenberg-Poma posted a photo of herself on Instagram with wounds on her lip and arm, and wrote, “I am the woman who was assaulted last night at Central Synagogue.” 

She added, “You will not punch out our Jewish light. You will not stand and cause harm to our eternal light.”