CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses harassment.
A Brooklyn woman says she was left terrified and bruised after being chased, kicked, spat at, and pelted with objects by a large group of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her for a protester during chaotic scenes in Crown Heights late last week.
The incident unfolded on Thursday night outside the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a major centre for the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. The area had become a flashpoint after a visit from Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sparked clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and local residents.
According to the woman, who is in her 30s and has lived in the neighbourhood for a decade, she only learned about the protest after hearing police helicopters overhead. Curious, she went out to see what was happening around 10:30pm, after most of the crowd had already dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she pulled up a scarf to cover her face. That’s when things escalated.
“As soon as I pulled up my scarf, a group of 100 men came over immediately and encircled me,” she told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety.
She described how the crowd began shouting at her, threatening her with sexual violence, and chanting “death to Arabs”. She said she thought the police would step in to protect her, but “they did nothing to intervene”.
Video footage from the scene shows the woman being kicked in the back by two men, hit in the head with a traffic cone, and shoved with a rubbish bin. As the lone police officer tried to escort her to safety, the crowd followed for several blocks, jeering in both Hebrew and English.
Warning: the footage is very confronting.
At one point, someone in the crowd shouted, “This is America. We got Israel. We got an army now.”
“I felt sheer terror,” she recalled.
“I realised at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.”
Eventually, the officer managed to get her into a police car, but not before someone yelled, “Get her!” and the crowd erupted in cheers as she was driven away.
After the attack, the woman said she was left with bruises and was “mentally shaken” by the ordeal. She believes the incident should be investigated as an act of hate.
“I’m afraid to move around the neighbourhood where I’ve lived for a decade,” she said.
“It doesn’t seem like anyone in any position of power really cares.”
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department confirmed that one person was arrested and five others were issued summonses following the demonstration, but did not say whether anyone involved in the assault on the woman was charged.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams condemned the violence, saying police were investigating several incidents from the night including another woman on the pro-Palestinian side of the protest who allegedly had injuries due to counterprotesters.
Adams said, “Let me be clear: none of this is acceptable, in fact, it is despicable. New York City will always be a place where people can peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing, or threatening”.
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for Chabad-Lubavitch, also condemned the violence, saying the behaviour was “entirely and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values” and that the involvement of an innocent bystander “underscores the seriousness of the situation”.
The protest was one of several held in New York in response to Ben-Gvir’s visit. Ben-Gvir, a controversial figure in Israeli politics, has a history of inflammatory rhetoric and has called on supporters to assert “Jewish Power”.
As of now, the woman says she remains shaken and is calling for more accountability from both police and community leaders. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Lead image: AP News
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