950 US rabbis condemn ‘alarming’ rise in NYC anti-Semitic violence

An organization representing more than 950 US Orthodox rabbis has condemned an “alarming” increase in violent attacks on Jews in New York City, saying it would work with authorities to provide protection to “neighborhoods under siege” after at least two anti-Semitic assaults within a week.

The Rabbinical Alliance of America — also known as “Iggud HaRabbonim” — said in a statement Monday that it “categorically condemns the alarming increase of horrifying physical attacks on Jews throughout New York City and beyond, and calls on all community, civic and political leaders to unite in denouncing this violent Jew hatred.”

The professional rabbinical organization, which was founded in 1942, listed three recent incidents in which Jews were violently attacked, two of which have been confirmed as anti-Semitic.

On Saturday, 52-year-old Menachem Moskowitz, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, was violently assaulted while walking home from Shabbat services in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Police have opened an investigation into the attack as an assault motivated by bias, after the victim said the assailant had told him he “hated Jews” and threatened to kill him.

In footage that emerged Monday of the brutal anti-Semitic assault, the attacker can be seen jumping on Moskowitz from behind in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, sending his hat and glasses flying into a nearby garden, beating him, pushing him up against an iron fence, and attempting to strangle him.

“I turned around and I see that he’s right behind me and he jumped me. And then he said ‘I hate Jews,’” Moskowitz told CBS late Sunday. “He put me in a headlock and I’m trying to maneuver out of him. In the meantime, I’m screaming, ‘Help! Help! Help! Help!’ He says, ‘You don’t need help. I’m going to kill you right here.’”

Moskowitz sustained a cracked rib along with a black eye, swelling, bruising and scratches over his body.

On April 13, a Jewish man was assaulted in the Crown Heights near 770 Eastern Parkway, the international headquarters of the Chabad movement, with police opening a bias investigation into the attack.

The man, who was walking with another ultra-Orthodox man, was attacked late in the evening by three black men and two black women, CrownHeights.info reported. One of the assailants asked the man, “Do you want to fight?” and began to kick and punch him with others joining in the attack.

The Rabbinical Alliance of America also mentioned in its statement an incident in which Madraque Tyquan Bailey, 22, a FedEx employee, repeatedly stabbed 28-year-old Jack Gindi, a Jewish man, in the Midtown section of Manhattan on Monday, on West 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue. The suspect was apprehended while the victim was seriously wounded and taken for treatment.

However, police said that Bailey knew Gindi, and that the brutal attack was the result of a dispute between them rather than anti-Jewish bias.

“The egregious scourge of anti-Semitism has reared its loathsome head once again,” said Rabbi Mendy Mirocznik, the organization’s vice president. “We cannot deny it, or even worse turn a blind eye to it.

“We intend to work closely with law enforcement officials towards the goal of providing sufficient protection to neighborhoods under siege,” he added. “We also ask that the NYPD continue their investigations in finding and apprehending the assailants who are still on the loose and we ask that each of them is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Everyone in this blessedly diverse society is at risk when anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia rise,” Rabbi Mirocznik concluded. “We must organize to stem the tide of such toxic hatred with every method at our disposal in order to protect the people of this great country.”