Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

WATCH: Muslim Teen Helps Nab Jewish Woman’s Attacker on NYC Subway

Ahmed Khalifa is winning recognition from the community after helping chase down a homeless man who slapped an Orthodox Jewish woman in the face on December 27.

“It was a very hard slap, I almost could feel the slap. He was 6-foot-6, and a very big, big guy,” said the 17-year-old Muslim high school student, in describing the incident, in which homeless man Rayvon Jones hit the woman while she sat on the Q train, according to the New York Daily News.

Khalifa held the doors open when the train arrived at the next stop and shouted for the conductor, as the woman was injured, with a gash on her mouth and broken glasses. He then went in pursuit of Jones, receiving an assist from a local Orthodox man he ran into and the Shomrim, a local patrol run by the Hasidic community whom the two called.

“A lady told me to run after the guy,” he said. “It took me a while to catch up. He started sprinting.” Cops nabbed the perp while he tried to get on a bus, and one of the members of the Shomrim drove Khalifa home.

“Some people are like ‘she’s Jewish, why did you help her,’” he told the Daily News, reflecting on the event. “I’m like everyone is equal. I treat everyone the same way.”

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

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.