Glickstein, 58, was walking to the well-known Mr. Broadway kosher restaurant on 38th Street on Monday when a man stopped him and demanded, “Tell me about your religion.” When Glickstein did not respond, the assailant snatched his kippah, threw it on the ground, spat on it, and punched him in the face as he bent down to pick it up.
Other Jewish bystanders who witnessed the incident shouted at the attacker and called the police and an ambulance. Glickstein managed to enter the restaurant before being taken to a hospital. The suspect fled and has not yet been caught.
NYPD now says the suspect is mentally unstable and had assaulted several non-Jewish pedestrians earlier that day, leading investigators to conclude the attack was not antisemitic in nature.
“I felt my Israeli pride was hurt,” Glickstein said afterward. “It pains me that I couldn’t fight back, and I regret that deeply.” He added that, in addition to working in education, he also lectures in the IDF.
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NYPD says attack on Israeli man not a hate crime
(Photo: Courtesy)
The attack comes amid a wave of antisemitic incidents in New York since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, with several violent assaults on Jews and Israelis reported in recent months.
Earlier this month, Vincent Sumpter was sentenced to five years in prison for a 2024 stabbing of Israeli yeshiva student Yechiel Michel Dobruskin, a Chabad member from Crown Heights. During that attack, Sumpter shouted “Free Palestine,” threatened bystanders, and stabbed Dobruskin, missing his heart by just four centimeters.
In another recent case, Tariq Bazruk, a 20-year-old New Yorker who once boasted about family ties to Hamas terrorists, was sentenced to 17 months in prison for attacking Jews during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He admitted to antisemitic hate crimes as part of a plea deal after targeting pro-Israel demonstrators in Manhattan and near Columbia University.
In August, the FBI launched a hate crime investigation after a group of men and women violently assaulted Jewish diners at the kosher Sissam restaurant in Queens. Witnesses said the attackers shouted, “We’re going to kill all the Jews,” before beating several victims. Two people were hospitalized—one with broken ribs and another with a concussion and facial injuries.
One woman described the attack: “They threw me to the ground, the women kicked me and beat me all over—my head, stomach, back, and neck. Then the men joined in. I thought I was going to die.”