An attacker runs toward a van in order to make his escape after punching a Jewish man in Flatbush, Brooklyn, February 11, 2022. Photo by Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol

By Rudy Malcom February 14, 2022

A Hasidic Jewish teenager was attacked in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn on Friday, and a Hasidic man said he was targeted by the same man minutes before. The attacks, which are being investigated by the police department’s Hate Crime Task Force, follow a string of antisemitic assaults in the borough over the past month.

Videos of the first assault shared by the Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol show an unidentified man following the 22-year-old victim and then slapping him in the face before running off and jumping into a passing van.

The incident took place around 10:30 p.m., Yeshiva World reported. A second victim, 14, said he was approached by the same man a few blocks away but was able to escape unhurt after the man tried to punch him.

In both cases, a second man was seen filming the attack from inside the van.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams issued a statement on Twitter Saturday, saying that “an attack on our Jewish community is an attack on every New Yorker. We will catch the perpetrators of this assault.”

Also recently, a crossing guard was removed from her post after allegedly spewing antisemitic slurs at parents and their children, including Rabbi Erica Gerson and her 9-year-old daughter, in January.

“She called us ‘nasty people, now we know why there’s no peace in the Middle East,’ and along with that, she cursed a kosher establishment,” Gerson told ABC7 New York. “The whole thing was totally surreal.”

NYPD statistics released earlier this month show a 275% increase in attacks targeting Jewish people —- 15 reported incidents — in the first month of 2022 compared to the previous January.

Antisemitic incidents accounted for 37% of hate crime incidents in New York City in 2021, an increase of more than 50% over the previous year. Police last year made 58 arrests in cases of anti-Jewish crimes.

In 2020, New York state led the nation with the most documented antisemitic incidents —- 336 of the 2,024 documented nationally —- according to an audit published by the Anti-Defamation League.

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