Reliving His Hate Terror – Hasid Tells of Attack

A Brooklyn yeshiva teacher yesterday gave harrowing testimony of how he was brutally attacked on Thanksgiving by two teens, saying they briefly knocked him unconscious, then ripped off his Hasidic garb as he tried to escape and taunted him by shouting, “Jew! Jew!”

“They hit me in the eye, and my glasses fell down, and I lost consciousness,” Joel Weinberger, 26, testified in Brooklyn Family Court regarding the attack on Harrison Avenue and Wallabout Street in South Williamsburg.

Two NYPD detectives later testified that the teens confessed to attacking Weinberger for “fun.”

Weinberger said that when he regained consciousness, the teens ripped off his hat, jacket and yarmulke and taunted him, yelling, “Jew! Jew!”

The Brooklyn teens — whose names are being withheld because of a judge’s order — have been charged with committing two other hate-crime assaults in South Williamsburg against Jews on Dec. 4 and Dec 6.

According to Detective Nicole Carter, when one teen was asked why they were targeting Jews, he said, “It was something fun to do” and “They don’t hit back.”

Carter said the teens confessed to having smoked $5 worth of pot at a park before heading to PS 318, which they referred to as “Jew Town.”

Weinberger said that the attack left him with a fractured eye and that three metal plates were inserted in his face.

He said he was confronted by the teens while walking home from the Be’er Torah Yeshiva, three blocks away. He said the teens didn’t take his wallet or his phone, even though he offered it to them.

Weinberger said he couldn’t identify his attackers in court.

Police said the teens admitted to attacking Weinberger while being questioned over other attacks. The teens’ lawyers contend they were illegally coerced into the confessions.

They are facing assault and harassment charges. The case is being handled as a bias crime.