Two Young Jewish Men Attacked on NYC Subway — America Must Act
“Is the world waiting for a Chanukah massacre in NYC before it understands how catastrophic the situation has become?”
Two young Jewish men, both members of Chabad (a global orthodox Jewish movement), were attacked on a New York City subway car by two black men. Although it appears the assault occurred on Monday night, the timing is not specified.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon shared a video that captured part of the violent encounter in a post on X.
Danon described the attack as “a deeply disturbing hate crime targeting young Chabad men on a train in New York, whose only act was sharing the light of Hanukkah,” adding that “such acts of hatred must be unequivocally condemned, and those responsible must be held accountable.”
The footage shows one of the assailants hurling antisemitic insults at a Jewish man as he grabs him by the neck. He shouts, “F*** you doing? “F****** touch me.”
A male passenger yells, “Chill. Chill bro,” and a female voice can be heard screaming, “Stop it, stop it.”
This is a deeply disturbing hate crime targeting young Chabad men on a train in New York, whose only act was sharing the light of Hanukkah.
Such acts of hatred must be unequivocally condemned, and those responsible must be held accountable. pic.twitter.com/FB9vz3MZcO— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) December 16, 2025
The Yeshiva World provided the most detailed account of the attack. The victims were returning from Chanukah kiruv activities in Manhattan to Crown Heights, as per the Israeli media outlet.
According to a victim’s firsthand account, a group of Jewish students was returning to Brooklyn on the subway after several hours of Hanukkah outreach when the ride turned violent. After the train left Manhattan, two men — “believed to be a father and son” — allegedly directed antisemitic slurs at the “visibly Jewish” passengers.
When one of the victims began recording the incident, one of the assailants attacked him. “The verbal abuse escalated rapidly,” the report said.
As the situation spiraled out of control, no passengers intervened. No one stood up. No one attempted to stop the assault.
“One stop before Crown Heights, we ran off the train in panic,” the bochur said. “Nobody helped us. Nobody got up to block them. We were completely alone.”
As the bochurim fled the car, the attacker made a gun gesture toward his head.
“I realized this could turn deadly,” the bochur said. “I quickly put the phone in my pocket — but the camera was still recording. You can hear everything. You can see the fear.”
Responding to the assault (and I assume to news of the brutal massacre at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday that left at least 15 participants dead and dozens more wounded), widely followed Israeli journalist Hen Mazzig asked in a post on X, “Is the world waiting for a Chanukah massacre in NYC before it understands how catastrophic the situation has become?”
Horrific. @CivilRights will investigate! https://t.co/tZlR2dCcg7
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) December 16, 2025
Mazzig, of course, is right. How many more attacks on Jewish people will it take before Washington realizes that substantive action is essential?
Every other minority group in America is protected from abuse. Imagine publicly denigrating a member of the trans community. Even denouncing members of Minnesota’s Somali community after reports that a predominantly Somali group had defrauded the state’s taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars — if not billions — has been frowned upon.
It is long past time for the United States to adopt a genuine zero-tolerance policy toward antisemitism. Not another symbolic resolution from the House of Representatives, not another denunciation devoid of enforcement, but action with substance.
Congress must pass legislation that treats the targeting of Jewish Americans for harassment, intimidation, or violence as a serious crime — one carrying clear penalties and real consequences. Without meaningful accountability, condemnations ring hollow, and the message sent to perpetrators is one of permissiveness. Protecting Jewish citizens is a fundamental obligation of a society that claims to uphold equal protection under the law.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Daniel Penny’s arrest and trial ensured no one will help. The communists in NYC will bring the hammer down if you interfere with a black thug’s “right” to victimize innocent people.
The election of Mamdani is the switch that opens the floodgates. Jew in NYC are in for a bumpy four years. Or more.
In some Jews are to blame for this as they continue to vote almost overwhelming Democrat.
Christians and Jews are at fault because we have Islamophobia. This terrible new disease was discovered shortly after the Muslim attack on 9/11. Consequently, we must never accuse Muslims for any reason and if someone does dare to point a finger, the response is, “Some people did something. So what?”
“Phobia” is from the Latin meaning fear.
Is there a suitable Latin word for disgust? That would seem to fit better.
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Well, phobia is Greek. There are Greek forms for disgust or aversion, but none of them have made it into compound English words. The term phobia has apparently “evolved” in English to encompass all three of those emotions.
Christians — a much larger voting bloc than Jews, obviously, numerically/statistically — deserve the lion’s share of the blame, if you’re myopically pointing fingers.
No Dhimmi-crat gets elected to office, in the U.S., without substantial votes from Christian Dhimmi-crats.
Acknowledge that reality, first, before foolishly and unfairly blaming Jews.
I’m Jewish, and ~I~ don’t understand how my fellow Jews can support someone whose stated positions equal hatred of us. The point isn’t that there are more non-Jews or that he couldn’t have been elected without their votes. It’s that a sizable percentage of Jews did vote for him, either not believing what he said, or being unable rise above the knee-jerk of voting for a presumed democrat, no matter how bad he or she is.
Absolutely right. No one is going to risk jail time and financial ruin after that.
For a few years, there was this concept going around the gun community that law-abiding concealed carriers were “sheepdogs” to benefit the general public. It abruptly fell out of currency when the sheep began prosecuting every sheepdog that did them a favor.
Now we’re all honey badgers instead. We’re still ready to save ourselves and our loved ones, but no one else. If some sheep around us gets his ass in a crack, too bad he didn’t buy and train, like we did.
Geography plays a large role here. I used to like going to Gotham for plays and other entertainment. I don’t see myself going there again, at least any time in the near future. I live in the South where politics favors people like me. I’ve found that it’s beyond my meager abilities to change peoples’ minds. So I live where I don’t have to try to do that. Life is short, and I don’t want to spend the rest of mine pushing large rocks up larger hills.
But just in case, I train like Henry Bowman. Yes, I’ve read it, maybe 6-8 times, first time a little over 30 years ago.
Sad, but true.
This is 100% the correct take here.
You could almost predict this would start happening.
Only gonna get worse.
If you’re a Jew in NYC, memorize this phrase: “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”
Good thing NY has gun control.
So these Jews cannot defend themselves.
Good thing NY arrested and tried Daniel Penny.
So no one else will intervene.
Good thing NY elected Mandami.
So we can “globalize the intifada”
I’m glad no one had a firearm. Otherwise someone would have been hurt.
/must I?
Even if someone did, Daniel Penny comes to mind (as per Paddy M above) or the octogenarian who defended himself against a robber and who got 4 years for an unlicensed gun because of NYC’s draconian gun restrictions despite Heller.
Yes, America needs to act but don’t expect it to act in NYC under Mayor Mamdani. That’s a fact. Mamdani said it himself “globalize the intifada.”
Take heed, America.
Mandami is all in on globalizing the intifada and has said so. He also is ready to try and arrest Netanyahu if he comes to the UN. NYC elected an islamist extremist for Mayor who hates Jews so expect more of this.
File under “Islam wins again”. As Mark Steyn has written about the rape gangs in England transforming the country into an Islamic state…. “You can’t make a (Islamic) Hamlet without breaking a few chicks”
I generally agree, but where’s any sign New Yorkers want any change? Enough of them voted for more chaos that the Agent of Chaos candidate won.
Any New Yorker who is sick of it should leave — and either never vote again or always vote conservative.
Bingo.
““Is the world waiting for a Chanukah massacre in NYC before it understands how catastrophic the situation has become?”
Well, they just voted in a Muslim communist for mayor, so good luck pretending they’d care even then.
Wait till Mamdani takes office. You ain’t seen nothing yet. And the victims of the attacks will be the ones charged.
Subotai Bahadur
Exactly. It will be kristallnacht 2.0–long version.
If you can get it, stream it, or see it some other way, watch the movie, Guns and Moses.
It would be helpful if our leadership class, establishment class, technocratic class would stop stoking hate and start telling folks to keep their hands to themselves, not to get in anyone’s face, not to approach/interfere with LEO making an apprehension. The fact that some refuse to publicly acknowledge these basic real world boundaries of civil behavior seems to indicate these same folks don’t want or respect boundaries or at least refuse to acknowledge those not established in each instance by force. That is a dangerous path.
The low-information urbanites have successfully elected power addicts, who cement that power by pretending that their criminal constituents are actually legitimate revolutionaries, cruelly oppressed by those who pay their bills — revolutionaries who deserve neither prosecution nor incarceration. Your expectation that these politicians would be willing to commit career seppuku for the greater good is unreasonable,
Sadly I don’t expect them to do so for all the very accurate reasons you mentioned. Instead I expect the opposite and along with it a growing recognition among average people that we are entering a period where the absence of force is equivalent to the absence of not just civility but civilization itself. When shame and social stigma no longer work to restrain evil, when the ‘authorities’ refuse to act then the Citizens either choose to suffer or push back.
“a growing recognition among average people that we are entering a period where the absence of force is equivalent to the absence of not just civility but civilization itself.”
This would be true if we were not simultaneously biasing the “average” by encouraging the reasonable people to flee nonviolently, and thereby biasing the hands in which the remaining force is concentrated.
It seems clear that, no matter what the provocation, no call will ever be issued to reasonable people to resist.
The conservative emblem is not the frog Pepe, but the frog in the pot on the stove..
Slight quibble. Flee might be a bit strong b/c it seems too loaded, implying never push back under any circumstances anywhere even where someone relocates. That’s not a plan for success. Instead I’d advise finding a county in a State that can offer more sanity and far less a population of Cray Cray wokiestas. Make that your refuge. John the community of more/less like minded folks. Nowhere is gonna be Galt’s Gulch but find your piece of property and community from which you won’t be pushed. Making a stand in a blue metropolitan area is likely to be a last stand that accomplishes little… other than for the wokiestas to drag you through the courts like Mr Penny, emptying your bank accounts along the way. Much better to find a place where the Sheriff/DA, much less the Jury, closes the case b/c in their view the ‘bad guy’ you stopped ‘got what was coming’.
I agree, but history proves it’s much easier to corrupt a red place than to maintain it. I give you New Hampshire, Vermont, Oregon, Colorado, Virginia, and possibly Arizona as object lessons.
(I still think AZ is salvageable, but as time goes on, the evidence backs me up less and less.)
when there are no consequences for this sort of behavior it always continues and it usually escalates–when, through lawfare or indifference, ordinary citizens are afraid to intervene, our society has broken–violence, except in certain extreme situations, can be a capricious response–dangerous for the thug but equally so for the person who intervenes on their own or on another’s behalf–that’s the part of our social contract that’s broken–for centuries, thugs rightfully expected to get their ass kicked (or worse) and rightfully so for attacking/endangering innocent citizens–for being shown, in real time, the immediate consequences of aberrant, dangerous behavior delivered to them by concerned citizens not just someone with a badge–we need to return to those boundaries for everyone’s sake
Usual suspects bullying Jewish folks – Need some LE and Force Laydown.
Everything has been antisemitism forever. It’s a cry wolf thing.
I remember in the 90s that Christmas decorations at work were antisemitic. It’s an expression of eternal alienation.
It can be a “cry wolf thing” but not in this case with an overt physical attack.
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And I remember Sean Hannity sniffling and peeing his pants about seeing signs that said happy holidays. He called that a war on Christmas.
Tell your idiotic notions to the dead Jews and the others that are forced to listen to clowns that trivialize bigotry and violence,
To be fair no one forces me to listen to clowns like hardin.
Yeah that “Holocaust” was so overrated, right hardin?
hardin got a big kick out of the Bondi Beach massacre
Seems to me that antisemitism is an obvious hate crime.
Don’t hear the antisemitic Dems mentioning that, do we?
Antisemitism itself isn’t a crime, and therefore can’t be a hate crime, just as anti-black hatred isn’t and can’t be a crime, and thus can’t be a hate crime.
Remember that “hate crime” does not and has never meant “any act motivated by hatred”. To be a hate crime an act must first be a crime.
But crimes motivated by antisemitism are hate crimes, and have been treated as such ever since that category was created. The same is true for crimes motivated by hatred of white people.
I can’t say that antisemitism doesn’t exist in the Birmingham area (it does, I’m sure, although nowhere near this level) but we don’t routinely hear of cases like this. Christianity still holds enough sway that anyone who calls himself a Christian recognises that the basis of our faith is Judaism – after all, we all know that Christ was a Jew when He was on this Earth. Would any of them move to our area? I dunno, but it looks like Noo Yuk is getting more hostile by the day.
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There’s several Temples in Birmingham (at least three) and the very nice Pine Tree Country Club is a predominantly, not exclusively, Jewish Club. Birmingham is a relatively young/new City compared to others and has had a consistent Jewish presence and influence from almost the very beginning.
Has the US State Department put NYC on its travel advisory warning list yet?
It needs to.
The NRA did 30 years ago.
We just got back from a trip to NYC for a wedding, and the City still looks mighty impressive. And that’s still the experience shared by the vast majority of residents and visitors, who simply prefer not to think otherwise. However, the price tag to play has gone up considerably, which is far more worrisome to most people than hypothetical violence, which after all is still statistically improbable for individuals. So the Democrats make things more expensive, blame that on “Capitalism”, and then promise to take money from the rich to make it all better and provide more free stuff. This strategy works only as long as the majority allows themselves to be fooled, but as PT Barnum once sagely observed “There’s a sucker born every minute!”
The follow-up quote is from H. L. Mencken: “People get what they vote for. Good and hard.”
A crime is a crime no matter who commits it or onto what “group”. I object to ANY group getting special consideration for somehow being “more attacked” than another.
If I’m beaten, I want the perpetrator prosecuted for the crime. I don’t really care what his warped perception of justification was.
If that was applied equally across ALL groups (for prosecution as well as protection) then these attacks would fall.
Equal Protection for All precludes “favored groups”.