FBI Investigating Brutal Assault on Kosher Restaurant, Attackers Screamed “Kill all the Jews” While Beating Jewish Diner

It is a grimly familiar scene, one that ought to shock but increasingly numbs: a group of Jewish diners in New York, savoring a late-night meal at a kosher restaurant in Queens, suddenly find themselves the target of a vicious assault. 

The attackers, emboldened by a hatred as old as it is mindlessly irrational, hurled anti-Semitic slurs and fists with equal abandon. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, we are told by The Algemeiner, is now probing this outrage as a possible hate crime, and it would take verbal contortion to see it otherwise. 

The victims, among them Bita Golbari, a 51-year-old New Yorker, recount a night that began with the simple pleasures of dinner and companionship but ended in blood and terror. Ms. Golbari, speaking to The Algemeiner, revealed that the FBI reached out to her on Tuesday to discuss the incident, which unfolded in the early hours of July 20 at Sezam, a restaurant serving Russian and Central Asian fare. 

The FBI's New York field office, however, has remained tight-lipped, offering no comment by press time. One might charitably assume they are too busy investigating to respond. Less charitably, one might wonder if they are simply indifferent.

The New York City Police Department's 112th Precinct, present at the scene, dutifully filed two complaint reports, both obtained by The Algemeiner. Curiously, neither report classified the attack as a hate crime, merely an "assault with intent to cause injury," [to, you know, the Jooooze!].

This bureaucratic sleight of hand raises questions the NYPD has so far declined to answer, despite The Algemeiner’s repeated attempts to reach the detective in charge. The Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information, similarly stonewalled. Why, one must ask, is an attack accompanied by cries of “You guys are Jewish, we wanna kill you all tonight” not immediately deemed a hate crime? Is this not the very definition of the term?

The details of the assault are as harrowing as they are infuriating. Golbari was dining with her husband and several other Jewish couples when a nearby table of men began staring at them with unnerving intensity. Elham Sharga, 45, a close friend of Golbari’s, described the scene: "From the beginning of the night, I saw there was a table next to us with a few men sitting at it, and they were staring at us. They were looking at our table." Sharga, unsettled, moved her chair to distance herself from their gaze. "I was really scared, so I moved my chair to the other side to sit next to my other friend. I didn’t give them attention; I just moved my spot."

The situation escalated around midnight when two women joined the men's table, sparking the violence. The trigger was mundane yet telling: Sharga's handbag went missing, only to be found in the possession of one of the women. When Sharga confronted her, the response was immediate and brutal. "She pulled my hair and threw me down," Sharga recounted. "Hitting me on my head, my belly, my back, my neck. They were pulling my hair. And then I heard the other guys come and they all started hitting me. I was thinking I was dying. I was screaming for help."

Her husband, rushing to her aid, was similarly battered, his face and arm bloodied. "I really don’t know how long I was on the floor getting beaten up," Sharga added, her voice carrying the weight of trauma. 

She was later hospitalized with fractured ribs, her body still wracked with pain. Golbari, witnessing the melee as she prepared to leave, described a scene of chaos: "I’m walking out the door and I see everybody is fighting. I see my friend Elham on the floor and they [the two women] are kicking and hitting her, punching … and I see my husband and the other people all fighting with the guys." 

Fleeing to call 9-1-1, Golbari was pursued by one of the attackers. "She came after me in the street," she recalled. "She grabbed me and she said, 'What the f–k are you trying to do? Are you trying to call the police on us? We are going to kill all of you Jews.' And then she punched me so hard in the face I thought I was dead."

In a moment of grace amid the horror, a stranger intervened. "I crossed the street, I found a guy, I held his hand, and I said, 'Please, don’t leave my side. Somebody is trying to kill me.' 

He said, 'Are you Jewish?' I said, 'Yes.' And he said, ‘OK, I’m going to help you. It’s OK, stay by me,'" Golbari recounted. This solitary act of decency stands in stark contrast to the cowardice of the restaurant staff, who did nothing to halt the violence, and the attackers, who fled before the police arrived. No arrests have been made.

This is not merely a story of a brawl gone wrong; it is a symptom of a deeper malaise. The reluctance of the NYPD to classify this as a hate crime, the silence of the authorities, the failure of bystanders to intervene, all point to a society grown weary of confronting the ugly reality of anti-Semitism. 

One can't help but wonder: how many more Jews must be beaten, how many more slurs must be hurled, before we call this what it is? The answer is, as the kids say, blowing in the wind, as the attackers vanish into the night and the victims are left to nurse their wounds, both physical and existential.

These scumcrumpets need to be tracked down and brought to justice, and the NYPD heads need to be held accountable for doing nothing but eating donuts.

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