When Jews are Beaten on the Streets of Manhattan...

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler's message of hate resulted in Jews being beaten on the streets, Jewish homes and synagogues being targeted. Ultimately, it ended in the decimation of Europe's Jewish population. It wasn't one man or one message. It was the insidious dehumanization and the silence of the world that led to the Holocaust.

Jews are being beaten, even murdered, on the streets. Synagogues and Jewish schools and homes are being targeted. The dehumanization has begun.

Today, I saw a video and it made me cry. Cry for America, cry for the world. Cry for my people. Cry for this man.

Is this the New York you want to live in?

Is this the America you want to live in?

Oh God, is this the WORLD you want to live in?

This man, Rami Glickstein, is a religious Israeli educator who was walking the streets of Manhattan when he was viciously assaulted near Mr. Broadway restaurant in midtown Manhattan. A large Black man followed him, threatened him, and harassed him. He tore the kippah (the yarmulka, the skullcap) from Rami's head, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. He spat on it and then he walked away, circled around and returned to the Jew he found so offensive. He didn't know that Rami was a Jew, an educated man, a professor, a lecturer and an IDF officer. All he knew at that moment was that Rami was a Jew. And that was enough.

So when he circled back, his intention was far worse than the mere "insult" of removing the outward sign of the man's Judaism. For good measure, this antisemitic lunatic then went and punched 58-year-old Rami in the face. Rami was knocked down, falling into the street.

And this is where New York fails. The New York that seems poised to elect Zohdan Mamdani. No, it wasn't enough that a Jew was beaten to the ground. As he lay in the gutter, more than one proud New Yorker walked on by the animal that attacked Rami waiting to see if Rami would get up. Only one man came forward and stood before Rami and his attacker...one man.

Rami was taken to the hospital, treated for a brain bleed, and released. The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is "investigating". Soon, I am sure, they will say that the Black man was unbalanced, mentally challenged. It wasn't really an act of hate.

You know what was an act of hate? The silence of all those who walked past as Rami was attacked and brutalized. Perhaps those people didn't know that Rami was Jewish. Maybe. Perhaps they were scared the man would attack them. Whatever their reason, I cry for them, for their inhumanity. And I thank God that I live in a country that is at the polar opposite of today's New York. When there is trouble, people run forward into danger to save lives...in my country.

Was New York always this way? Was America?

When Jews are beaten on the streets of Manhattan, it is time for the Jewish community to take a serious look at how they plan to defend themselves. If Rami's beating is an example of what is to come, Jewish life in America, at least for religiously observant Jews, may soon become an impossibility.