“An attack on our Jewish community is an attack on every New Yorker.”
A Jewish teenager was attacked in Flatbush, Brooklyn on Friday night, while another man was menaced by what appears to be the same perpetrator, prompting condemnation from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol shared two videos of the first assault, which follows a string of antisemitic incidents in Brooklyn over the past month. Both recordings show a visibly Jewish male being followed by a thin man in a hood, who punches his target in the face before running off and jumping into a passing van.
Shomrim said the attack took place at 10:30 pm at Avenue L and E. 32nd, the community publication Yeshiva World reported. A second man said he was targeted by the same perpetrator at Nostrand Avenue and Kings Highway, but escaped unhurt.
In both cases, an accomplice appeared to record a video of the attack.
Mayor Eric Adams issued a brief statement on Twitter on Saturday night, saying the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force “is investigating this attack, and make no mistake an attack on our Jewish community is an attack on every New Yorker. We will catch the perpetrators of this assault.”
He asked the public to contact the police with any information on the incident.
The Jewish community in Brooklyn has faced several assaults over the past five weeks, in the continuation of a violent trend that has beleaguered the community for years.
In early January, an Orthodox man was severely beaten by two attackers in Brooklyn, who also fled in a vehicle. A yeshiva student was punched in the face later that month, while in February, a Jewish man was attacked by a 15-year-old who was subsequently arrested and multiple yeshiva buses were defaced with swastikas.
NYPD statistics released earlier this month showed that hate crimes against Jews grew by 275 percent year over year, with 15 antisemitic incidents reported this January, compared to four in January 2021, a local ABC affiliate reported.