Debbie Schlussel: More Accounts of Brave Rabbi & Cowardly Muslim Attackers in Brooklyn
Yesterday, I broke the news of the attack by five Muslims on Rabbi Uria Ohana in Brooklyn, New York, Wednesday Night. Here are more accounts, today, from the mainstream media, which--in the case of the New York Post--ironically skips the beating the Muslims gave him. These men were not just Arabs--THEY WERE MUSLIM. And the JPost story gets the number of assailants and the words wrong--it's "AllaHU Akbar":
After speaking with a friend of Ohana this Morning, NewsBlaze can report that he was not badly injured, even though the teenagers were hitting and kicking him. There were six teens at the subway, but only three were involved in the attack [DS: the other three were accessories to it]. A crowd of people quickly gathered and although they did not directly help Ohana, the growing crowd must have scared the boys and instead of helping their injured friend, they ran away, jumped into a car and fled the scene.
A 25-year-old Israeli rabbinical assistant was assaulted by a group of Arab teenagers screaming "Allah akbar" in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening.Uria Ohana, originally from Kfar Chabad, entered a subway station in the affluent Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn Tuesday evening, on his way to a lecture in Manhattan, when he noticed a group of Arab teenagers congregated on a bench in the station.
Ohana did not exchange words or make eye contact with the group, but proceeded upstairs to his train.
On his way, he felt someone grab his kippa from his head and then heard laughter. Ohana decided to chase the boys to retrieve his kippa.
The 18-year-old boy who grabbed the kippa left the subway station and ran into the street, where he was hit by a car, breaking his leg.
While Ohana chased the boy, the other teenagers began chasing him, screaming "Allah akbar."
"They screamed at me, 'Did you see what happened to him because of you?'" said Ohana, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical assistant who works in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Two of the Arab boys then started kicking and punching Ohana in the face.
"As soon as they started screaming, I understood [the attack] was racial," said Ohana.
The crime is being investigated as aggravated harassment and a possible bias crime, according to a New York Police Department spokeswoman. "I am almost sure it will be charged as a hate crime," said the spokeswoman.
"I'm sad that this kind of attack is coming to New York after seeing this in Israel," said Ohana. "An Arab teenager attacking a Jew for being a Jew scares me as a Jew."
Ohana said one police officer brushed the incident off as a case of a teenager who "doesn't know what 'Allah akbar' means.
"This scares me in a global context, Arabs taking national pride one step forward," said Ohana.
The youth who was hit by the car was taken to the Lutheran Medical Center to be treated for his broken leg and was placed under arrest. The other two boys fled the scene and have not yet been apprehended.
Uria Ohana, 25, a member of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, told The Post he entered a subway station alone at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street in Park Slope at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday.Ohana said he went through a turnstile and spotted a group of young Arabic men sitting on a bench.
"I wasn't afraid of anything. I didn't think anything would happen," he said.
But something did.
Ohana said he felt a hand grab his brown yarmulke off his head.
He then spun around and came face to face with one of the men, Ali Hussein, 18, police said.
"There were no words exchanged. I decided to chase him to get my yarmulke back," Ohana said.
Hussein's friends joined in the foot pursuit, screaming "Allah-hu Akbar," which means "God is great." [DS: Um, actually, it means Allah is the GREATER or GREATEST, as in "greater" than your god and mine.]
They ran outside and Hussein darted into the street, where he was hit by a blue Volvo and toppled to the ground, cops said.
"He couldn't move. He broke his leg. He was crying," said Ohana. [DS: So sad, too bad.]
Hussein's friends then jumped into a suburban GMC and sped away.
Police arrested Hussein for alleged aggravated harassment as a hate crime.
Posted by Debbie on March 20, 2008 02:35 PM to Debbie Schlussel