Brooklyn bigots
W’burg Jews living in fear of attack amid hate crimes
BIGOTS: Cops are hunting for this trio suspected of attacking a Jewish
man in Williamsburg on May 4. NYPD
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BY COLIN MIXSON
Williamsburg Jews suffered a
string of senseless attacks earlier
this month, leaving members
of the neighborhood’s
Orthodox Jewish community
fearing for their safety, according
to a local rabbi.
“People merely walking on
the streets here feel like sitting
ducks, worrying that they
must look over their shoulder
in fear of being hurt because of
their faith,” said Rabbi David
Niederman, executive director
of the United Jewish Organization
of Williamsburg.
A group of men attacked a
42-year-old man wearing religious
garb on Lynch Street near
Broadway at 1:15 p.m. on May 4,
shouting anti-Semitic slurs, before
socking him in the face, according
to police.
Three days later, a teenager
snuck up behind an Orthodox
Jewish man on Marcy Avenue
near Rodney Street at 7:03 on
May 7, when he brutally sucker
punched the man, before fl eeing,
cops said.
Police arrested a 16-year-old
boy in connection with the May
7 attack Wednesday morning,
charging with him assault as a
hate crime, according to police.
Both attacks come at a time
when hate crimes citywide are
soaring, with 145 hate crimes reported
between Jan. 1 and April
30, a 67-percent increase over the
87 reported hate crimes reported
during the same period in 2018.
Of those, more than half
targeted Jews in the fi rst quarter
of both 2018 and 2019, with
82 attacks against Jewish New
Yorker’s this year alone.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
chimed in to condemn the attacks,
and offered the NYPD’s
Hate Crimes Task Force state
resources to help track down
the culprits.
“This abhorrent act of
hate-fueled violence is deeply
disturbing, especially in the
wake of a reported spike in
hate crimes and anti-Semitic
incidents over the past year,”
Cuomo said.
The rise in hate crimes occurs
during an outbreak of the
deadly measles virus in Brooklyn,
which has largely been
confi ned to Williasmburg’s Orthodox
Jewish community, and
has infected more than 460 people
borough-wide.
In April , a Jewish man accused
an MTA bus driver of attempting
to refuse him service
on the B57 line in Williamsburg,
and then shouting about
the measles after he was able to
run down and board the bus.
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