Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israeli Tourist Busted For Climbing Brooklyn Bridge For A Selfie

(JTA) – Police in New York arrested an Israeli tourist who climbed the Brooklyn Bridge to take a selfie there.

The tourist was an 18-year-old man whom the New York Post identified as “Shivel Dikstein.”

Unlike Shoval, Shivel is not a common Israeli name.

He was arrested at 7 p.m. after he allegedly jumping a fence on the Brooklyn side, the report said.

“He jumped up to get a selfie with the skyline behind him,” the Post quoted a witness as saying.

The man was charged with criminal trespass.

The Israel’s arrest comes days after a group of youths nearly died while taking a selfie on thin ice on a pond in Central Park.

Deaths related attempts to take self portraits with smartphones are increasing worldwide.

In Iran, a man in his 40s was killed after he tried to take a selfie in front a dam as it burst during freak weather conditions in the southeastern city of Jirof, the Evening Standard of London reported earlier this week.

Kashmir, a  disputed territory between India and Pakistan, registered its first known selfie-related fatal incident this week. Fourteen-year-old Adnan Mehraj Mir of Khanyar died after he was hit by train near Nowgam Railway Station when he was taking a selfie on the railway track, police said.

In Dubai, a Russian model and popular user of the Instagram social network risked her life for a selfie last month illegally, prompting authorities to declare she may be permanently banned from re-entering that state.

Viki Odintcova, 23, dangled down from a top floor of the 1,000-foot tall Cayan Tower while holding on to a male assistant’s arm.

And in Argentina, a group of tourists last month dragged a dolphin calf out of the water in the city of San Bernardo south of Buenos Aires to pose for selfies with it, resulting in the animal’s death, Argentine newspaper La Capital reported.

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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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 editorial@forward.com, 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.

Exit mobile version