“It is to escape all this that our families came to the USA, and now it is repeating itself here too”
About a hundred demonstrators gathered in New York on Sunday to denounce anti-Semitism after the street attack last week on two men of Jewish faith.
Blake Zavadsky and Ilan Kaganovich, both 21, were verbally and physically assaulted on a street in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge neighborhood. According to Zavadsky, he was spotted for wearing a sweatshirt with the IDF emblem on it.
“The assailant told me I had five seconds to take off my sweatshirt and then he called us ‘dirty Jews’ before punching me twice in the face,” Zavadsky said.
An investigation was opened by the New York Police (NYPD), who named the attack a hate crime. No arrest has yet been made.
After their assault, the two seized New York City Councilor Inna Vernikov, who organized Sunday’s protest.
Like them, Ms. Vernikov comes from a Jewish family from Eastern Europe, who arrived in the United States after the fall of the Soviet Empire.
“It’s exactly the same kind of attack that we suffered in the former Soviet Union. In order to be able to work and study, we were asked to remove our Star of David and change our name,” said Ms. Vernikov, member. of the Republican Party.
“It is to escape all this that our families came to the United States and now the same is happening here too,” she added.
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