Witness blasts NYT's bias, gives firsthand account of NYC synagogue rampage

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Harry Zimmerman was sitting just six rows from the front when Friday, August 14 prayers at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue were suddenly shattered by a man screaming and charging through the sanctuary.

What Zimmerman saw was, in his telling, a violent assault inside a packed Jewish house of worship.

Then he read The New York Times' account of the incident and said he could barely reconcile the article with what had unfolded only feet from him.

Witness challenges NYT's account

Zimmerman did not mince words when describing his frustration with the Times.

In a lengthy Facebook post on August 17, he challenged the newspaper’s portrayal of the incident, arguing that seemingly mild descriptions stripped away the force and context of what congregants actually experienced.

Zimmerman pointed specifically to the paper describing suspect Larry Montes as having “grown agitated” and saying he “struggled” while attacking a congregant.

That was not how Zimmerman remembered it.

He said the service had been proceeding normally when Montes suddenly began screaming at the top of his lungs.

The man moved through the aisle with his arms swinging while people attending Shabbat services sat nearby.

And then, Zimmerman said, Montes turned toward a 63-year-old woman sitting near the aisle.

Zimmerman rejected the suggestion that the blow happened merely as part of a struggle with security.

According to his firsthand account, the woman was struck before Montes had been restrained.

Zimmerman bashes NYT's 'bias'

Zimmerman also took issue with how the destruction of the synagogue’s religious objects was characterized.

The Times reported that Montes knocked over a set of candlesticks.

Zimmerman argued that description made the damage sound almost incidental as though the objects had simply been caught up in the chaos. He said that was not what he witnessed.

In his account, Montes intentionally grabbed and damaged the Shabbat candlesticks.

Zimmerman stressed that these were not ordinary objects sitting around the room but religious items with significance to the congregation.

He argued that readers who were not inside Central Synagogue had no firsthand experience to compare against the report. For them, the wording of the article becomes the event.

And Zimmerman believes the Times’ version left out too much of the atmosphere, violence and religious context he personally witnessed. 

Shocking synagogue attack in Manhattan

The incident at Central Synagogue occurred Friday evening during a livestreamed Shabbat service.

Suspect Larry Montes was arrested at the scene after disrupting the service, assaulting a congregant and attacking a security team member.

Police said he also damaged synagogue property, while prosecutors have filed multiple hate-crime charges.

The NYPD said Montes spat at and head-butted a member of the security team as he was being removed. A sergeant assigned to the synagogue then took him into custody.

The Times has defended its coverage, saying its reporting presented the facts about an incident that threatened congregants and disrupted a religious gathering.