Brooklyn, New York, NY – A group of 4 Chabad bochurim were victims of an antisemitic incident by a knife-wielding man on Thursday evening in Brooklyn Bridge Park in downtown Brooklyn.
The bochurim, Israeli students who learn in 770 Chabad Yeshiva, were in the park at approximately midnight, when they were approached by a black male, who proceeded to shout antisemitic slurs and insults at them
He shouted at the bochurim to get out of the park, and then he took out a knife and demanded that they give him money, the victims said.
The man shouted rhetoric commonly heard from Black Hebrew Israelites, claiming that he is the real Jew, and they are not. Black Hebrew Israelites are classified as a Hate Group; the Jersey City supermarket shooting in 2019 during which 6 people were killed was perpetrated by a man who identified as a Black Hebrew.
He kept yelling that he is a real Jew and we are not, and that we should get out of the park, the victims told COLlive.
The bochurim called Shmira of Williamsburg, who arrived and called the police, who arrested the man. The charges were upgraded on Friday to include hate crime charges, NYPD liaison Devorah Halberstam told COLlive
