A Brooklyn woman said she feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spat at and pelted with objects by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her as protester against Israel’s far-right security minister.
The assault, recorded by a bystander, unfolded late on April 24 near the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where an appearance by Itamar Ben-Gvir set off clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and members of the neighbourhood’s large Orthodox Jewish community.
The woman, a neighbourhood resident in her 30s, told the Associated Press she learnt of the protest after hearing police helicopters over her apartment. She walked over to investigate around 10.30pm but by then the protest had mostly dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she covered her face with a scarf.
“As soon as I pulled up my scarf, a group of 100 men came over immediately and encircled me,” said the woman, who spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.
“They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs.’ I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene,” she said.
As the chants grew in intensity, a lone police officer tried to escort her to safety. They were followed for blocks by hundreds of men and boys jeering in Hebrew and English.
Video shows two of the men kicking her in the back, another hurling a traffic cone into her head and a fourth pushing a bin into her.
Footage shows clashes after anti-Israel protest outside Brooklyn synagogue
“This is America,” one of the men can be heard saying. “We got Israel. We got an army now.”
At one point, she and the police officer were nearly cornered against a building, the video shows.
“I felt sheer terror,” the woman recalled. “I realised at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.”
After several blocks, the officer hustled the woman into a police vehicle, prompting one man to yell, “Get her.” The crowd erupted in cheers as she was driven away.
The woman, a lifelong New Yorker, said she was left with bruises and mentally shaken by the episode, which she said police should investigate as an act of hate.
“I’m afraid to move around the neighbourhood where I’ve lived for a decade,” she told the AP. “It doesn’t seem like anyone in any position of power really cares.”
A police official said one person was arrested and five others were issued summons following the demonstration, but did not say whether anyone involved in assaulting the woman was charged.
New York's Mayor Eric Adams said on Sunday that police were investigating “a series of incidents stemming from clashing protests on Thursday”.
He said police had spoken to a different woman on the pro-Palestinian side of the protest who suffered injuries after she was harassed by counter-protesters. Photos shared online showed that woman with blood streaming 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 peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing, or threatening.”
A Chabad-Lubavitch spokesman, Rabbi Motti Seligson, denounced both the anti-Ben-Gvir protesters and the mob that chased the woman.
The protest was one of several in recent days against Mr Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist settler leader who is embarking on his first US state visit since joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet three years ago.
