Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jewish Man Beaten, Choked In Crown Heights While Walking Home From Synagogue

(JTA) — An identifiably Jewish man was beaten and choked while walking home from Shabbat services in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

It is the second such attack in two weeks.

The Jewish man was walking home from prayer services at about 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. He told the CrownHights.info news website that he said “good afternoon” to a man who was smoking a cigar on a street corner.

“As soon as [I greeted] him he began yelling at me ‘you fake Jews, who are you saying hello to? Your fake Jews and you stole all my money and robbed me, and stole my mortgage and my house. I want to kill you!’” the news website quoted the man as saying.

The victim said he walked away from the man quickly but that the assailant caught up with the Jewish man and put him in a chokehold and threatened to kill him.

Two women eventually separated the victim from the assailant and told him to run. He called the Jewish ambulance service Hatzalah from his home, which notified police. The victim sustained a cracked rib along with swelling, bruising and scratches over his body.

Police have opened an investigation into the attack as an assault motivated by bias.

Last Friday night a Jewish man was assaulted in the Crown Heights near 770 Eastern Parkway, the international headquarters of the Chabad movement.

The Anti-Defamation League announced on Sunday that it is offering $5,000 rewards for information leading to the arrests and convictions of the individuals responsible for both attacks.

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.