Man Charged in Upper East Side Attack on Jewish Couple
A 23-year-old Brooklyn man was arrested for assaulting an Orthodox Jewish couple in Manhattan this summer.
A New York Police Department spokesman confirmed to JTA that Mustafa Mashni was charged with assault, as first reported on the Jpupdates website.
The victims, in their 20s, were walking on the Upper East Side at approximately 8 p.m. Aug. 25 when several vehicles, including a motorcycle adorned with Palestinian flags, pulled up to them. The occupants yelled several anti-Semitic slurs, threw a bottle of water at the woman and punched the man in the head. Police believe he was targeted because he was wearing a kipah.
According to Jpupdates, Mashni told detectives with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force that he had wanted to stop the confrontation when he approached the Jewish male but accidentally hit him in in the face.
Mashni had been arrested three times previously by New York Police, Jpupdates reported.
The Upper East Side is an affluent neighborhood with a large Jewish population.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
