A Jewish man who was attending New York City's Central Synagogue when an antisemitic attack was committed at the house of worship last Friday night, eviscerated the New York Times for the way in which it covered the incident, the New York Post reported.
During the incident, the attacker spat at and headbutted the security officer. The suspect, identified as Larry Montes, has been arrested and charged with multiple hate crimes.
The incident sparked panic among congregants as the man shouted and moved down the aisle. A security guard eventually restrained him. A 63-year-old woman suffered a small cut to her lip and injuries to her right forearm after being struck, according to the NYPD.
Congregant Harry Zimmerman wrote about the attack and the New York Times' coverage of it, which he said "certainly dilutes the true story and subtext" of what happened, in a post to Facebook.
"Last Friday night, Char and I were in New York and attended Shabbat services at Central Synagogue. We were sitting in the sixth row when a man entered the sanctuary and violently disrupted the service in what prosecutors are now treating as a hate-crime case," he wrote.
He noted that "the incident itself is not the main reason I am writing as most of you already generally know what happened. What has also stayed with me and what I cannot emotionally consolidate is the difference between what I witnessed from a few feet away and how The New York Times decided to describe the event."
Zimmerman stated that he has heard others call out the Times' bias against Israel and its slanted coverage of Jewish issues, but he could comment on this issue, because, as he stated, "I was there. I saw it happen."
He directly quoted the Times' article on the incident, which states: “Mr. Montes grew agitated, the video shows, punching the air with his arms and yelling into the temple’s interior. As he struggled, he hit a 63-year-old congregant in her face with his hand, cutting her lip, and spat at and head-butted a security guard, the police said. Mr. Montes also knocked over a set of candlesticks before a police sergeant who was providing security to the synagogue stepped in and arrested him."
Zimmerman criticized the Times' coverage, which he stated "does not fully capture what took place" and made the damage and injuries caused by the attacker appear to be incidental or accidental rather than intentional.
He noted that he was "only feet away" from the attacker, and that contrary to the Times' description of the injuries to the victim being caused during a "struggle," the attacker struck the victim with his closed fist before security arrived and not "as part of a struggle."
He also accused the Times of downplaying the deliberate damage to the synagogue's candlesticks, which the newspaper described as the attacker having “knocked over a set of candlesticks."
Zimmerman wrote that the candlesticks "Were not simply knocked over in the course of the disruption, and they were not simply candlesticks. To the Jewish congregants they were much more. I saw him intentionally grab and destroy them. Much in the way Germans and the polls went into synagogues in 1938 and destroyed Torahs, which as a parallel the NY Times would describe as destroying history books. Reading the reported value of those candlesticks are approximately $20,000. The NY Times decided to omit that description as well."
"The cumulative effect of the wording in the Times account is PERVERTING the reality that an extremely violent and frightening incident inside a synagogue during Shabbat services reads, to me, as something else," Zimmerman said.