What to Know
- Another attack on Hasidic men in Brooklyn was reported last week, according to the NYPD
- The report of two individuals knocking over two Jewish men's hats comes as the community gathered in Brooklyn to call for an end to hate
- The spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the first three quarters of 2019 have alarmed New York City's Jewish population
The NYPD says another attack on Hasidic men in Brooklyn was reported last week as the Jewish community gathered Wednesday to call for an end to anti-Semitic hate crimes around the city.
Two Hasidic were standing at South 10 Street and Wythe Avenue on Sept. 20 when two individuals came and knocked the shtreimel, a fur hat worn by many married Hasidic men, off their heads, according to police. No injuries were reported but the incident is the latest attack on Hasidic men in recent months.
"No community should have to live in fear like this. To be targeted because you are identifiably Jewish is just an abhorrent way to live and we have to stop it," Eric Goldstein of United Jewish Appeal of New York said Wednesday at Lincoln Terrace Park, where a rock was thrown at a Rabbi in August.
Signaling the start of the Jewish New Year, Rabbi Abraham Gopin blew the shofar at the gathering and recalled the attack that left him bloodied and hospitalized for five days.
"He was trying to smash my face with (his fist) and I was protecting it each time he picked up his hand. I knocked down his hand like 20 times," Gopin tells News 4.
While Gopin's attacker was later arrested, another attack was reported less than a week after in the same neighborhood. Police said a group of men threw a rock at a Jewish delivery driver as he sat in his truck on Aug. 29 and no one has been arrested.
Event organizer Liel Leibovitz says it's important for all Jewish people, orthodox or not, to stand up against hate.
"All of us, irrespective of what we wear and what we believe, are standing together just before the new year and saying we’re not gonna let this stand," Leibovitz said.
The spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the first three quarters of 2019 have alarmed New York City's Jewish population, which is the largest in the country, and elected officials.
"We’ll never tolerate a hate crime, we’ll never tolerate hate in our city in any form, and we’ll continue to build and strengthen our partnerships in the Jewish community and all across New York City to ensure that everyone in every neighborhood is safe," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the annual High Holy Days briefing last week.
