Monsey Stabbing: 5 Wounded at Rabbi’s Home in N.Y. Suburb

An intruder with a knife stormed into the home of a Hasidic rabbi in a New York suburb on Saturday, stabbing and wounding five people, officials said.

The home of the rabbi, Chaim Rottenberg, is in Monsey, N.Y., an area with a large population of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The attack happened during a Hanukkah party around 10 p.m., when a man entered the home and stabbed the five people before fleeing, officials said.

Police officials announced around midnight that the attacker had been caught, but they did not immediately indicate whether they were investigating the violence as a bias crime.

“The suspect fled the scene, but he is in custody at this time,” police officials said.

Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley region, said five people were stabbed in the attack, and two were critically wounded. Among the victims was a son of the rabbi.

“The house had many dozens of people in there,” Mr. Gestetner said in a phone interview. “It was a Hanukkah celebration.”

Peggy Green, a Monsey resident who is Jewish, said she was at the Evergreen Kosher Market at around 10 p.m. when she heard that there had been a stabbing nearby on Forshay Road.

Ms. Green said the market, which is usually open until midnight on Saturdays and was busy with people shopping for Hanukkah parties, closed early.

Ms. Green, who lives nearby, said she tried to drive near the rabbi’s home but found Forshay Road blocked off by a long line of ambulances and police cars.

“It’s very scary,” she said, of being Jewish in Rockland County, adding that she thinks synagogues should have more armed security.

Ed Day, the county executive for Rockland County, which is northwest of New York City, condemned the attack.

“Law enforcement in Rockland will leave no stone unturned as they bring those guilty of this crime to swift and severe justice,” Mr. Day said in a statement.

No one has been charged in that attack, and officials have not determined that it was a bias crime.

Rockland County, a collection of five towns northwest of New York City, has a population of more than 300,000 people. About 31 percent of the population is Jewish, according to the state, and the county has one of the largest concentrations of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the country.

The ultra-Orthodox population has surged particularly in recent years as Hasidic families from Queens and Brooklyn, priced out of their neighborhoods, sought to build communities elsewhere.