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Back-to-Back Attacks On Orthodox Jewish Men in Brooklyn Less Than 10 Hours Apart

One assailant, after punching a Hasidic man on his way to shul in the face, said he was ‘fed up with Jews’

by
Jonathan Zalman
November 04, 2015
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Members of the New York Police Department in the Brooklyn, April 30, 2009. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Members of the New York Police Department in the Brooklyn, April 30, 2009. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

An Orthodox Jewish man who volunteers for Hatzalah, a Brooklyn-based ambulance service, was stabbed in the back by an assailant while walking home from shul in Crown Heights Tuesday night. The victim, 34-year-old Dovid Katz, reportedly radioed in his own injury—a 3 inch-long gash on his upper right back—and was taken to Kings County hospital in his own ambulance. No arrests have been made, and no weapon found, although the New York Post reported that the attack on the volunteer EMT is being investigated as a hate crime. Katz’s family said he is expected to make a full recovery.

NYPD Assistant Chief Steven Powers told Yeshiva World News that patrols would be added to the area.

Nearby, and just hours later at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, a man attacked a Hasidic man who was reading prayers on his phone while walking to synagogue. The assailant, Christian Rojas, 36, reportedly knocked the phone out of the Hasidic man’s hands and punched him in the face. While he was being arrested he yelled that he was “fed up with Jews” and other anti-Semitic comments.

Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.