Man arrested after ramming car into 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad’s Brooklyn headquarters

JTA – A man rammed his car multiple times into Chabad’s world headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Wednesday night, 28 January, igniting fear and drawing top city officials to the scene. 

The man drove into a side entrance of 770 Eastern Parkway, the Chasidic movement’s headquarters, then reversed before accelerating again into the entrance multiple times. The impact knocked a door off its hinges as a crowd gathered, according to footage that was shared widely. 

No-one was injured in the incident, which took place at 20:45 as the Chabad community marked the anniversary of the death of the movement’s penultimate leader, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson. The premises at 770 Eastern Parkway, which is virtually always crowded with adherents studying and praying, was temporarily closed in the wake of the incident. 

“A car just drove into the side doors of 770 at Chabad Headquarters. Baruch Hashem, there are no injuries,” Yaacov Behrman, a Crown Heights activist who works as a public relations liaison for Chabad headquarters, tweeted as the incident unfolded. “Witnesses report the driver yelled for people to move as he drove in. It appears intentional.” 

The assailant, who drove a car with New Jersey licence plates and was dressed in shorts despite the extreme cold, was arrested at the scene. New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the incident was being investigated as a hate crime, but that it was too early to speculate about the assailant’s mental state. 

Tisch, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Attorney General Letitia James held a press conference outside the building late on Wednesday, where they denounced the crime and offered details about the preliminary investigation. 

Tisch said the man had been arrested by officers already stationed outside 770 Eastern Parkway and that a bomb squad had found no explosive devices in his car. She said her department was increasing patrols outside all houses of worship. 

Mamdani called the incident “deeply alarming”, mentioning Schneerson’s yahrzeit specifically and noting the significance of the site and the date “to so many in New York and around the world”. Replicas or approximations of the building at 770 Eastern Parkway have been erected in dozens of sites around the world, including a brick-for-brick copy built in Kfar Chabad, Israel. 

“Any threat to a Jewish institution or place of worship must be taken seriously,” Mamdani, whose response to previous incidents outside synagogues has drawn criticism. “Antisemitism has no place in our city, and violence or intimidation against Jewish New Yorkers is unacceptable. I stand in solidarity with the Crown Heights Jewish community, and I’m grateful to our first responders for taking swift action.” 

The incident comes six weeks after gunmen attacked a Chabad Chanukah celebration in Sydney, killing 15. The shooting called attention to the vulnerability of Chabad’s emissaries and institutions around the world, where they are often the only or most visible purveyors of Judaism.