Luca Robert Lewis, a 20-year-old rookie goalie for the New York Red Bulls Major League Soccer team, stated that on Thursday night in New York City, he was accosted by a group of “6-8 Palestinian men” who accosted him and asked him if he was Jewish as they brandished knives. Lewis wrote that when he said he was not Jewish, one of the men said, “Good,” but when Lewis prompted, “What if I was Jewish?” the man got in his face, saying, “I’ll beat the f***in s*** out of you and kill you.”
Lewis wrote on Instagram:
Last night I was walking in New York with a friend and all of a sudden a group of 6-8 Palestinian men walk up to me and asked me where I was from. I responded and said “New York.” Then one guy asks me if I am Jewish. I paused for a moment in confusion and thought about it, then I saw them withdrawing knives. I obviously said no. The guy looked at me with such disgust in his eyes and said “Good.” As I started walking away, I felt extremely angry and felt like I had to say something.
So I turned back around to him and said to him, “What if I was Jewish?” The group of men walk up to my face and the same guy says, “’I’ll beat the f***in s*** out of you and kill you.” As I was face to face with this guy I told him, “What is the need for that?” He started charging at me but a few women who were with the group started screaming at him to stop and let it go. Luckily my friend and I were fine. However, if I was visibly Jewish, I don’t know what would of happened to me. Everyone who is “visibly” Jewish now has to be scared to walk around New York in peace and that’s a huge problem.
The same day Lewis was accosted, Joseph Borgen, 29, who is Jewish, was beaten and pepper sprayed by a pro-Palestinian mob group in Times Square. He told The Daily Mail on Friday:
I turned around to try to figure out what was going on and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by a whole crowd of people who proceeded to physically attack me, beat me, kick me, punch me, hit me with crutches, hit me with flag poles, … After I wound up on the ground, I was literally just in a fetal position, trying to guard my head and face, literally just trying to make it out of their alive. They maced me or pepper sprayed me for like a minute straight. My whole face was on fire. I couldn’t see. In the hospital, they literally had to drain out my eyes. My skin’s still on fire in certain places. … I thought I was going to die. I thought I was really going to die.
Borgen said eight to 10 people were in the group that attacked him and shouted, “You filthy Jew. We’re going to f****** kill you. Go back to Israel. Hamas is going to kill you.”
He commented, “They feel like they can get away with more because they have politicians backing them up. ‘Some of the things I see in the news and on social media, it’s just sickening to me. I would never think I’d ever have to worry about my religion or my skin color or my ethnicity being a problem in New York City. Beyond just the Jewish perspective, the amount of hate that’s going on these days is really just mind blowing to me.”
One suspect in the attack on Borgen, Wassem Awawdah, was arrested on Friday night, according to the NYPD.