A 66-year-old rabbi was left with a broken shoulder and lingering fear after a stranger allegedly put him in a headlock and pummeled him on a Kensington sidewalk Wednesday night, and the man charged in the attack was later granted supervised release by a judge despite five prior arrests. Police say 31-year-old Eric Avrutov attacked the rabbi in front of 375 Dahill Road at approximately 9:20 p.m.
Surveillance footage released by the Boro Park Shomrim neighborhood watch group shows the assault, and police arrested Avrutov, according to the Times of Israel. Police charged Avrutov with criminal obstruction of breathing along with assault and harassment, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Per the New York Post, the rabbi was later released from Maimonides Medical Center.
Avrumi Herbst said the rabbi is struggling with emotional trauma following the attack, per the Post's reporting, and that the rabbi was concerned about both his own safety and that of his neighbors. The district attorney's office notified the rabbi that Avrutov had been released again, according to the same report. Despite his injuries, Herbst said the rabbi still plans to officiate Sukkot services as usual.
A Second Assault the Same Night
Police say the Dahill Road attack wasn't Avrutov's only alleged assault that evening. Around the corner at a Shell station on Cortelyou Road, he allegedly slugged a 60-year-old man in the face, the article notes. Judge Edward Daniels granted Avrutov supervised release in both the rabbi's case and the Shell station case, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors had requested $10,000 cash bail or a $20,000 bond in connection with the rabbi's assault, per the same account, but the reasoning behind the judge's decision was unclear as of publication. Police determined the assault on the rabbi was not motivated by hate, but rather characterized it as an unprovoked assault on a stranger.
A Pattern of Prior Arrests
Two days earlier, around 11:30 a.m. Monday, Avrutov allegedly punched a 23-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman near Brighton 12th Street and Brighton Beach Avenue, roughly five miles south of Kensington. Avrutov is described as a Brighton Beach man. Judge Duane Frankson granted him supervised release in that case too, with prosecutors seeking $2,500 cash bail or a $5,000 bond.
The top charge against Avrutov in that earlier incident was misdemeanor assault, which the DA's office said was not eligible for bail. Under New York Criminal Procedure Law, misdemeanor assault is classified as a non-qualifying offense, legally barring judges from setting cash bail unless specific statutory repeat-harm or felony conditions are met, according to FindLaw. FOX 5 New York described supervised release as a non-bail release.
Avrutov's record includes five previous arrests, among them a 2024 gun-possession arrest, a criminal-trespass arrest, and an arrest for violating an order of protection. He was also arrested for allegedly violating an order of protection dated June 2026 at his grandmother's Brooklyn home, and charged with criminal contempt in that case.
A Tense Backdrop Ahead of Sukkot
The string of attacks comes ahead of the start of Sukkot, a major weeklong Jewish holiday, per VINnews. Earlier Wednesday, in a separate incident in nearby Crown Heights, NYPD officers arrested a 48-year-old man who allegedly chased a 24-year-old yeshiva student with a knife while shouting Nazi slogans, resulting in hate crime charges, according to the Times of Israel.
NYPD statistics from mid-2026 show anti-Jewish offenses accounted for more than half of all reported hate crimes citywide during the first half of the year, with over 180 anti-Semitic incidents recorded, according to the American Jewish Committee. The recent street assault in Kensington comes as the holiday approaches — even as police say this particular attack was not driven by bias.
