New York – A woman from Brooklyn said she feared for her life when she was persecuted, kicked, spit and thrown with objects of a multitude of orthodox Jewish men who confused her as a participant in a protest against the Minister of Security of the extreme right of Israel.
The assault, recorded by a spectator, Thursday was developed near the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where a Itamar Ben-Gvir appearance triggered the clashes between pro-palestinian activists and members of the great Orthodox Jewish community of the neighborhood.
The woman, a 30 -year -old neighborhood resident, told Associated Press that she learned about the protest after listening to police helicopters about her apartment. She walked to investigate around 10:30 pm, but by then the protest had mostly disbursed. Not wanting to be filmed, he covered his face with a scarf.
“As soon as I raised my scarf, a group of 100 men immediately approached and surrounded me,” said the woman, who spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.
“They shouted me, threatening to rape me, singing ‘death to the Arabs.’ I thought the police would protect me from the mafia, but they did nothing to intervene,” he said.
As the songs grew in intensity, an official police officer tried to escort her to a safe place. They were followed by hundreds of men and children who mocked in Hebrew and English.
The video shows two of the men kicking her in the back, another throwing a traffic cone on her head and a room pushing a garbage boat on it.
“This is America,” one of the men can be heard. “We have Israel. Now we have an army.”
In a moment, she and the police officer were almost cornered against a building, according to the video.
“I felt pure terror,” the woman recalled. “I realized at that time that I couldn’t take this multitude of men to my house. It had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified.”
After several blocks, the officer pushed the woman to a police vehicle, which caused a man to shout: “It consigns!” The crowd exploded in cheers when it was expelled.
The woman, a New York of a lifetime, said she stayed with bruises and mentally shaken by the episode, who said the police should investigate as an act of hate.
“I am afraid to move through the neighborhood where I have lived for a decade,” he told the AP. “It does not seem that anyone in any position of power really cares.”
A police spokesman said that a person was arrested and that five others received a citation after the demonstration, but did not say if someone involved in assaulting the woman was accused.
Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday that the police were investigating “a series of incidents derived from the confrontation protests on Thursday that began when a group of anti-Israel protesters surrounded the headquarters of the world of Chabad Lubavitch, a Jewish cult house, in Brooklyn.”
He said the police had spoken with a different woman on the pro-palestinian side of the protest that suffered wounds after she was harassed by counterprotestors. The photos shared online showed that woman with blood that flowed down her face.
“Let me be clear: none of this is acceptable, in fact, it is despicable,” Adams added. “New York City will always be a place where people can protest peacefully, but we will not tolerate violence, transfer, threat or threat.”
The protest was one of several in recent days Against Ben-Gvir, a leader of ultra-nationalist settlers who is embarking on his first visit to the United States status since he joined the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet three years ago.
Previously convicted in Israel for racist incitement and support for a terrorist group, ha called his followers confront the Palestinians and affirm “Jewish power.”
The protest against the appearance of Brooklyn of Ben-Gvir generated convictions of some Jewish groups, which accused participants to point to a religious site.
The neighborhood around Chabad’s headquarters was also the 1991 Crown Heights Crown Heights riots, in which black residents were outraged by the death of children in an accident that involved the caravan of a rabbi attacked Jews, homes and businesses for three days.
A spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Motti Seligson, denounced both anti-Ben-Gvir protesters and the mafia that pursued the woman.
“The violent provocative who requested the genocide of the Jews in support of the terrorists and terrorism, outside a synagogue, in a Jewish neighborhood, where some of the worst anti -Semitic violence in US history were perpetrated, and where many residents share deep links with the victims of October 7, they did so to intimidate, provoke and instill in fear.
“We condemn the raw language and violence of the small separatist group of young people; such actions are completely unacceptable and totally antithetical to the values of the Torah. The fact that a possibly not involved spectator was attracted to the melee underlines the point,” he said.
