Chestnut Hill Reservoir, Massachusetts Image by Yelm/Wikimedia

(JTA) — A group of teenage yeshiva boys saved a man from drowning in the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston.

The man they saved, it turned out, has a tattoo of a Nazi swastika on his hand.

The incident occurred last week, NBC10 Boston reported.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The teens, who study at a yeshiva high school in Brighton, Mass., saw the body and then ran to the police car of Boston College Police Officer Carl Mascioli.

Mascioli pulled the body out of the water. He told NBC Boston that the submerged man did not have much time left and would have died if the teens had not spotted him and taken action.

Mascioli said that he told the man with the swastika on his hand that it was a group of Jewish teens who saved his life. “I kind of let the gentlemen know sometimes some deeds have a funny way of turning around,” he told NBC10. “Their good deed had a little bit of a twist to it.”

The teens asked the police officer to tell the man that it was Jewish teens who saved him and that they had no regrets about helping a man with an anti-Semitic tattoo.

He is expected to make a full recovery.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

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.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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

$90 $180

$360

Other amount