Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Brooklyn Man Beaten For Defending Jewish Couple On Subway

Jean Wolfman was left with a cut to the head that required 10 stitches to close after stepping in to prevent a group of subway dancers from harassing an older Jewish couple.

According to Wolfman, the dancers started menacing an older man and his wife after the man did not tip them after they did their routine, in an incident that began as the train neared Manhattan’s Union Square.

“He starts screaming at the guy, like violently, ‘I will slap that beanie off your head!’” Wolfman told CBS News New York. “And he goes to the guy’s yarmulke like this, and he slaps the yarmulke off the guy’s head.”

As the train pulled into Union Square, Wolfman and the dancers both exited the train, and he tried to speak to them about their actions. They responded by punching him and using hula hoop he had in his hand to beat him.

Wolfman, who’s also a dancer, flagged down the police, who were able to arrest one of the perpetrators, Davon Sejourne, who is being charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.