Caught On Camera: Woman Screams Anti-Semitic Slurs At Passengers During Disturbing Subway Attack
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A disturbing act of hate is caught on camera on the subway.
Now a woman is speaking out, after she says she was verbally and physically assaulted because of her religion.
The words are nothing short of a hate-filled anti-Semitic attack.
Lihi Aharon says she and others were on the receiving end. It was Dec. 12 when Aharon says she asked a woman to move her belongings from a train seat so she could sit down.
She says the woman refused so instead she and her friend sat across from her and next to a Jewish man.
"She heard me speaking Hebrew to my friend. We were talking Hebrew and I sat down and the man was visibly Jewish man sitting there realized we were speaking Hebrew and she started cursing at us and telling how Jews should be killed and Allah will kill them," Aharon said.
Aharon said she decided to record the rant "because I feel like it's gotta be out there,"
The subway rider tells CBS2 it only enraged the woman and she knocked the phone out of her hands and then attacked her.
"She came close to me and she pointed at me and in a second and she grabbed my face, like she was trying to pull it off, my face and I was so shocked."
Aharon says she fought the woman off after she was scratched in the face and pushed the emergency button.
The attacker was arrested at the Wall Street stop, but the verbal tirade continued.
After the arrest, Aharon says the Jewish man told her insults had started even before she got on train.
"He said that she said it's a shame they didn't kill all of the Jews in Jersey City and that was a great thing and they should have
finished what they started and awful, awful things."
Aharon is being represented by the Lawfare Project, a civil rights legal group that helps Jewish victims of hate crimes.
"I think there's probably no other way to see the crime than as an anti-Semitic hate crime based on the video, based on the witnesses that were there, and based on what happened," Ziporah Reich, an attorney with the Lawfare Project said.
Aharon says she wanted to share her story, to show hate is still out there.
"Anti-Semitism, gotta stop, we gotta take that hate and banish it," Aharon added.
The woman was charged with assault and the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
