Anti-Jewish attacks have spiked in the U.S. over the last few weeks, and the epicenter of the violence seems to be the Jewish community of Crown Heights.
In the latest incident caught on security camera video, a masked man grabbed a six-year-old chasidic boy walking hand-in-hand with his father and brother on Kingston Avenue last Shabbat afternoon, lifting his victim into the air. The father pulled his son back and fended off the perpetrator with a shove to the stomach.
The local Shomrim organization, which has been working closely with the 71st precinct to address the explosion of violence in the Lubavitch enclave, called the attempted kidnapping “deeply concerning” and said it had succeeded in identifying the perpetrator, Stephen Stowe, 28, who was then arrested by the NYPD. Stowe, who has an extensive criminal record, faces several charges including attempted kidnapping, harassment, and child endangerment, but has not been charged with a hate crime.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, two attackers, reportedly both black teenagers, chased and severely beat a 50-something chasidic man with a wooden cane after he refused to hand over his cell phone in an attempted robbery. The victim had just exited a local subway station shortly after 7 p.m. in the evening.
That Monday morning, a black man smacked a 13-year-old chasidic boy who was riding his bike to yeshiva. The boy’s mother said her son, who appears younger than his age, bikes to school every day without incident, but this time was “suddenly slapped in the face” as he rode along the sidewalk. “He was so scared that he was going to be attacked further that he drove away as quickly as he could,” she said.
Remarkably, the boy continued on to school and took his place in the classroom as usual. His rebbe, Rabbi Yisrael Eliashiv, said he noticed the boy, who is usually “very involved,” not paying attention and appearing “very detached.”
“I asked him what was going on, at which point he proceeded to tell me what had happened to him 15 to 20 minutes prior,” Eliashiv told JNS.
“Almost everyone in Crown Heights can tell you stories of close calls they’ve had, and while a few might have been due to mental illness or drug usage, it’s generally made very clear during the incidents that this is specifically about targeting Jews,” Eliashiv continued, noting that these perpetrators typically pass a number of potential victims before unleashing their attack on a visibly Orthodox Jew.
On October 29, less than a week before the bicycle assault, a 30-year-old chasidic man was slashed in the face while he was walking in Crown Heights. In this incident, the black male attacker yelled an antisemitic slur as he stabbed the man in his face with a knife. Thankfully, the victim is expected to make a full recovery.
Other recent reported incidents in the neighborhood include an individual being forcefully knocked down, a gang trailing and then violently attacking a yeshiva student, and a disturbance at a kosher café where a man reportedly harassed customers with antisemitic and anti-Israel remarks.
“Something is clearly going on in Crown Heights – there have been incident after incident over the past two weeks,” Chabad spokesman Yaacov Behrman posted on X.
This week, concerned residents attended a town hall meeting at a local yeshiva organized by the community’s vaad, which was also attended by NYPD 71st Precinct Chief Deputy Inspector Thomas Smith. Acknowledging the consequences of bail reform in New York, Smith admitted, “It’s frustrating…when we make the arrest and these perpetrators are back out on the street, but that hasn’t deterred us.” He told residents they are a “high priority” and promised to work with parks enforcement to increase patrols in the local Lefferts Park, which residents say is a hotspot for drug use.
The wave of anti-Jewish attacks over the last couple of weeks is not limited to Crown Heights, however.
In Staten Island, a Jewish man crossing the street had his kippah knocked off his had by a passing motorcyclist.
In Chicago, two Jewish students at DePaul University were punched by masked men while they staffed a table outside the student center hoping to encourage peaceful dialogue about Israel. One of the suspects made antisemitic remarks before striking his victim.
Just a few hours later, police were called to the Loop Synagogue in downtown Chicago, where Jews attending a lecture reported being harassed and attacked. Some protestors proceeded to enter and vandalize the synagogue; three arrests were made. This followed a fatal attack on an Orthodox Jewish man by a Muslim man on a Chicago street at the end of last month. The suspect, who then opened fire on police and paramedics, is facing terrorism and hate crime charges.
At Williams College in Massachusetts, a table outside a dormitory with Israeli and American flags painted on it was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. And at Case Western University in Cleveland, vandals sprayed red paint and glued posters with anti-Jewish messages and symbols all around the campus.
On the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Washington, D.C.’s iconic Char Bar kosher grill had its windows smashed overnight. Disturbingly, the incident is so far not being investigated as a hate crime.
In Florida, authorities last week arrested a man for planning an attack on Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Jewish Democrat. The suspect, John Lapinski, 41, was found near the congressman’s home with an antisemitic manifesto. Charges against Lapinski include possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and other weapons charges. The congressman said Lapinski was in possession of a rifle, a suppressor, and body armor, as well as a manifesto that included anti-Jewish language and a “target list” with only Moskowitz’s name.
Moskowitz, who was elected to Congress in 2022 and reelected last week, wrote, “Serving my constituents is a great honor, but it has put my family in danger.” He said he was notified of the threat the day before the election by local police, who had been working with federal law enforcement agencies inside his southeast Florida district, which covers parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties and is home to a large Jewish population.
These incidents – which in no way constitute an exhaustive list – have occurred as antisemitism rages across the Atlantic, with the premeditated, highly orchestrated pogrom by Muslims in Amsterdam against visiting Israeli soccer fans injured dozens, sent hundreds of terrified Israelis scrambling for cover, and left the entire Jewish world reeling in shock. Though the attacks were condemned by Dutch government officials, including both the king and the prime minister, police in Amsterdam had failed to act on advance warnings about the threat or to intervene while Jews were beaten in the streets.
Meanwhile, a Jewish student in Dublin was cornered in the bathroom of a pub by three men who asked if he was Jewish and then proceeded to beat him severely. In France, a monument honoring resistance members and victims of the Nazis was vandalized last weekend with anti-Israel graffiti. France has seen increasing violence against Jews, including an assault last month on a visibly Jewish teenager leaving a metro station in a Paris suburb, and a brutal attack this October 7 against a Jewish woman at the entrance to her Paris home by three men brandishing a knife and spewing antisemitic remarks.
“Attacks of this kind threaten not only Israel but endanger the entire world,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared after the rampage in Amsterdam. “We have learned something from history: Wild attacks that start against Jews never end with the Jews. In the end, they spread to all of society, and pass from country to country until they burn all of humanity.”
“Therefore, I expect and demand that every responsible government take strong, vigorous, clear, and urgent action.”
Israel has urged its citizens to stay away from cultural and sporting events as well as demonstrations of any kind in European countries, with the National Security Council warning that anti-Israel groups were calling for attacks on Israelis and Jews in multiple European cities “under the pretense of demonstrations and protests.”
“Be extra careful about concealing anything that could identify you as Israeli/Jewish,” the advisory stated.
