Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

New York Ex-Cop Reveals Shocking Anti-Semitic Tapes

An ex-police officer assigned to the World Trade Center says he was barraged with anti-Semitic comments on a daily basis — and he has the tapes to prove it.

David Attali, an Israeli Jew, told WABC in New York City that the constant harassment took its toll.

“Every day when I would go to work, literally every step I would take closer to the building, I would just feel my mood changing,” he said. “Every day, to hear the same things, I felt like I was caged.”

The nastiness started soon after he arrived at the World Trade Center Command — and never stopped, .

In one recording Attali made, an officer is heard making a joke about the Holocaust.

Cop: “Do you want to go to this camp for the summer?”
Attali: “Why?”
Cop: “Oh, you will lose so much weight, you’ll be in the best shape of your life.
Attali: “How so?”
Cop: “It’s a concentration camp.”

In another recording, not one, not two, but three officers are heard to be making even more hateful comments.

Cop 1: “I hate that haircut.”
Attali: “Want me to shave my head?”
Cop 1: “I want to push you into an oven and (expletive) burn.”
Cop 2: “I want to tattoo a number on you.”
Cop 3: “DKS7741, step up, breathe in this tube,” another said. “And, oh wait, he died, surprise, surprise.”

Ads for pork were also posted on his locker, Attali alleged and, the WABC report says, Officer Christopher Delbrocolo often called him a “dirty Jew.”

The NYPD is investigating and three cops have been hit with disciplinary charges.

Attali quit last year and is suing the city and nine officers, including Delbrocolo.

He told The Daily News that he believes other cops resented that he was given off Saturdays to observe the Sabbath.

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

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

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

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.