Orthodox man, 25, stabbed in Brooklyn

NEW YORK — An Orthodox man was stabbed on a sidewalk in the Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s world headquarters.

Yehuda Lib Brikman, 25, who according to JPUpdates is newly married, was stabbed Wednesday morning in the upper back on a residential street in Crown Heights. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital in serious but stable condition shortly before noon.

The alleged assailant was an African-American man, according to JP Updates. Police are investigating the incident — it is not clear whether or not they are looking at it as a hate crime. The victim did not know the assailant and the attack was unprovoked, police said.

“No words were exchanged and there was not a fight,” a police spokeswoman said, according to AM New York.

The attack occurred days after a 49-year-old Orthodox man was brutally beaten and robbed in Borough Park, another heavily Orthodox section of Brooklyn. In that incident, the victim was attacked by several people, who put him in a chokehold and kicked him in the face several times, then took his wallet, according to CBS Local.

There have been numerous other attacks on Orthodox men in Brooklyn in the past few months. In two separate incidents in Midwood in late December, a 17-year-old yeshiva student and 60-year-old man were assaulted and robbed.

Also in late December, an African-American male reportedly punched an Orthodox student on the campus of Medgar Evers College. Before fleeing the Crown Heights school, the alleged assailant reportedly said, “I don’t like white and Jewish boys, leave the school, you Jew.”