The 'Matsav' in the US

Police Brush Off Crown Heights Gang Attack
(IsraelNN.com) A 12-year-old Jewish girl was the victim of a racially motivated physical and verbal gang assault Tuesday night by a large group of 10-year-old black boys in a local playground in the Jewish section of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The girl’s mother said the group tried provoking her with verbal taunts and throwing a ball at her. After she threw it back, the group surrounded her, pulled her by her hair to the ground, and started kicking and hitting her.

According to one witness, who managed to chase the group away, one of the assailants slammed the girl's head into a metal slide and she briefly lost consciousness. The family spoke to police at the local 71st precinct who told the victim that her story did not make sense and there was nothing that he could do. The victim was then taken to a local hospital where an ER doctor confirmed that she had suffered a concussion.


Report: Jews Most Frequent Hate Crime Target in NY

(IsraelNN.com) A report by New York State’s Department of Criminal Justice Services revealed that Jews were the top targets of hate crimes in the state in 2008, followed by blacks, gay men, and Hispanics. The report analyzed crime data from police agencies across the state. Police agencies identified 596 hate crimes throughout New York last year and Jews were targets 36 percent of the time. Blacks were targeted 25 percent of the time, gay men 11 percent, and Hispanics 4 percent.

The New York City borough of Brooklyn recorded the most incidents, followed by Nassau County on Long Island, the borough of Manhattan and Suffolk County, also on Long Island. There were 64 convictions from the hate-crimes incidents recorded last year, and of those, "only 10 were convicted of a hate-crime charge," according to the report.