New York teens launch attack on Jewish man, one bites policeman

This incident follows a much more serious attack on Wednesday, when an ex-convict knifed a young hasidic couple and their baby in broad daylight.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A teen with two younger friends spat and threw garbage at a Jewish man in Brooklyn, New York Thursday evening, with the leader of the pack arrested after biting the policeman who confronted them.

The three got into an argument with the man, the police said, and reacted with violence. The authorities caught up to them quickly after being called, and the 13-year-old ringleader caused the officer minor injuries when challenged. Her younger companions were not taken into custody.

This incident follows a much more serious attack Wednesday, when an ex-convict knifed a young hasidic couple and their baby in broad daylight in lower Manhattan.

On Friday, New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told CNN that the man, who had just been paroled a month ago after serving time for attempted murder, actually targeted the toddler after passing the visibly Jewish family on the sidewalk.

“Stop and listen to this slowly: He slashes the mom, slashes the dad and then intentionally stabs a child, a 1-year-old girl in a stroller,” Shea said. “Where’s the outrage? Something is clearly broken here. It’s a crisis.”

The family, visiting from Belgium, all suffered cuts to the head and face, some of which needed stitching. The alleged attacker, 30-year-old Darryl Jones, is being held without bail on several charges, including attempted murder, assault, and drug possession.

Even though he uttered nothing anti-Semitic during the attack, the mother told the New York Daily News that she was sure of his motive.

“This was a horrible hate crime,” she said. “There were more people in that park, but he came to attack us because we are Jewish.”

The police are treating the case as “a possible bias incident.”

Recent surveys show that anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States.

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual survey on the subject in January revealed that a quarter of American Jews have personally experienced anti-Semitism in the past five years, a jump from 20% the year before. Over a third of those experiences, nine percent, were physical attacks. In the 2020 survey, only a quarter of the incidents were personal assaults.

Another 38% surveyed had witnessed an anti-Semitic incident. This was a 9% jump from early 2020, a survey that took place on the heels of a string of attacks on Jews in the New York area. Some 59% overall said they feel Jews are less safe in the U.S. than they were 10 years ago. The survey questioned 503 Jewish Americans and had a margin of error of 4.4%.

In October, a survey by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) showed that 62% of Americans, both Jews and non-Jews, think that anti-Semitism is a problem in their country, although the number is far greater among Jews – 88%. Nearly double the number of Jews (37%) to non-Jews (19%) consider it a very serious problem, however.

In contrast to the ADL survey, 84% of the 1,334 Jews surveyed in the AJC poll believe anti-Semitism has gotten worse over the last five years in the United States.