A Jewish man who was outside his apartment building in New York City having a cigarette on the first night of Hanukkah says he was sucker punched, leaving him bruised and bloody.
Joshua Merenfeld said he was attacked from behind, with the person yelling antisemitic slurs at him while clubbing and kicking him.
“He sucker punched me, pushed me over, assaulted me,” Merenfeld told WNYW.
Why are we letting bigotries from across the world influence us in the United States? Jewish and Muslim Americans should not be getting attacked over what is happening in Gaza. It’s not their war.
Right… But we’re funding the bombs for one side. So is it our war or not?
It’s “our” war in that the U.S. government is doing it.
That doesn’t justify attacking American Jews because of what Israel is doing and it also doesn’t justify attacking American Muslims because you support Israel. They had nothing to do with it.
Nobody is trying to justify that.
I just don’t like it when people say “it’s not our war”. People say the same thing on social media on posts about the protests for a ceasefire. As long as the US is funding Israel, it is our war.
When I say “it’s not their war” I mean that American Jews are not Israelis and American Muslims are not members of Hamas. Or even necessarily Palestinians. And as a member of one of those groups, I’d like to speak on behalf of both and say we’re really fucking tired of being treated as if we’re foreigners.
It’s very easy for people to conflate Jewish people with Israelis, for obvious, if incorrect, reasons.
It took us almost 2 damn decades to not associate Muslims with terrorists, and all that work went out with the wash water as well.😞
I apologize for how some of us are treating y’all.
People like to forget about the crusades.
Even if you do support Israel, that should be what people are judging you for, not just being Jewish or Muslim.
That is hateful bullshit and should not be tolerated.
Thank you, well said. And, sadly, there are still plenty of people who see a Muslim person walking down the street and view them with instant suspicion.
Unfortunately, being told to “go home” because you’re a foreigner is an integral part of the American experience. It’s happened to literally every group that’s come over for hundreds of years.
Indeed.
Who are the Palestinian and Jewish-led groups leading the protests against Israel’s action in Gaza?
That ought to blow some (small) minds.
It’s not surprising, but it’s disheartening to see people downvote you for this comment. Blind hate. Plain and simple.
3 out of 12 is not as disheartening to me as it could very well be. It would have been higher when I was a kid in the 80s.
I agree, you should not. And neither should we (EU).
But it was the US which vetoed the UN resolution. It’s the US who sponsors Apartheid in Israel, and we contribute, too.
I fear there will be more 9/11’s, and more attacks in London, Madrid and Paris.
We should be neutral in this conflict and only support humanitarian values.
Sure, but this is most likely not a case of some sort of foreign reprisal against America as a whole, this is a specific attack against a Jewish person, most likely by another American since it happened in the U.S.
Saying “well the U.S. supports Israel” is not an excuse to attack Jews as if they necessarily support Israel as individuals. No more than it is an excuse to attack Muslims as if they were all members of Hamas.
Stop treating non-Christian, sometimes non-White Americans like they’re fucking foreigners. Is that really too much to ask?
The UN has zero power even in an unanimous vote.
No? In the case of a successful vote they can command sanctions and stuff, and depending on the situation send peacekeeper forces.