Earlier than he left the Backyard State home of worship to go to Brooklyn, his automobile ended up getting caught within the snow, Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz mentioned. Congregants helped dig his automobile out, he mentioned.
Simply over 24 hours later, he was dealing with hate crime prices after being arrested for repeatedly ramming the facet entrance of the Chabad World Headquarters together with his Honda, sending congregants scrambling for canopy, police and prosecutors mentioned.
On Tuesday, Sohail, 36, walked into the NJ yeshiva by an unlocked door in one of many faculty’s workplaces, however directors brushed it off, figuring they’d missed his knocks at their locked entrance door.
After attending the yeshiva’s 15 minute prayer service, Sohail remained on the faculty for an additional hour and a half, chatting with a bunch of teenage college students of their examine corridor, Teitz, 65, mentioned.
Dan Sohail allegedly slammed his automobile into the doorway of the Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Kerry Burke / New York Day by day Information)
“He was very polite sitting there,” mentioned the rabbi. “He was totally calm, normal demeanor. No one felt threatened by him.”
Teitz, mentioned their yeshiva is the one Jewish home of worship on the town, the place forty roughly high-school age college students attend.
“He told one of the students, and one of the administration people reported that he said that he was Jewish, although not by Jewish law necessarily, but he thought that he was Jewish, that God talks to him and that’s why he’s searching,” Teitz defined.
As he began to go away, Sohail turned upset after noticing that his automobile was caught within the snow within the car parking zone, and stormed again contained in the yeshiva.
“He was agitated by his car being stuck and kind of lashed out a little bit,” mentioned the rabbi.
“One of the deans turns over to him and says, ‘You can’t really talk that way in the study hall. Can we take it outside?’” the rabbi continued. “That’s where he made some comments about not having found satisfaction with a Chabad House in this place or the Chabad House in that place.”
Individuals clear up the scene the place a automobile slammed into the doorway of the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photograph/Yuki Iwamura)
A bunch of scholars helped shoveled Sohail’s automobile out of the snow and he went on his method.
“That was it,” the rabbi mentioned. “There was not anything to give us any inkling as to what was going to happen.”
The following night time about 8:45 p.m., Sohail repeatedly rammed right into a facet entrance of the Chabad headquarters situated on Japanese Parkway close to Kingston Ave. in Crown Heights, inflicting greater than $1,500 price of harm. Nobody was injured.
Sohail was charged with tried assault, prison mischief, reckless endangerment and aggravated harassment — all as hate crimes, that means, if convicted, he could be subjected to harsher sentencing. He’s additionally charged with disrupting a spiritual service.
Prosecutors known as the incident “an unacceptable, brazen attack on the Chabad Lubavitch community” throughout his temporary arraignment, the place a Brooklyn choose ordered him held on $500,000 money bail and denied a psychological examination.
Rabbi Teitz mentioned Sohail didn’t strike him as a bigot.
“This was not an anti-semitic attack, it was just that he was frustrated with the whole Lubavitch movement, because he felt they weren’t addressing his needs, so he took it out on the door with his car,” the rabbi mentioned.
Majid, who hasn’t spoken to Sohail in at the very least 5 years, mentioned he struggles with some type of psychological points.
“He have some kind of depression, something in his mind, I don’t know why,” the daddy mentioned.
Sohail had visited synagogues not too long ago in an effort to transform however had been rebuffed, in line with police sources. When he not too long ago visited a synagogue in South Brunswick, N.J., congregants known as police as a result of Sohail was discovered yelling exterior the home of worship.
Police didn’t arrest Sohail then, however advisable he go to a psychological well being counselor, sources mentioned.
Native police have upped patrols close to the Carteret yeshiva in response to the ramming incident in Brooklyn.
“Just in case, you know, they don’t want any copycats or things like that,” the rabbi mentioned. “It’s nice to have the presence.”
