Police are searching for a antisemitic bigot who viciously attacked a Jewish man with a baseball bat in Staten Island on Monday.
The 25-year-old victim told police that he was standing outside a residential building near 475 Grandview Ave, when the perp approached and began hurling anti-Jewish remarks at around 2:30 p.m.
After his verbal tirade, the suspect then brandished a metal bat, and hit the victim in the head, according to police.
Paramedics rushed the injured man to Staten Island University Hospital, where he is expected to recover from his wounds.
The suspect, meanwhile, fled the location on foot northbound towards Netherland Avenue. No arrests have yet been made, and the investigation remains ongoing.
An NYPD spokesperson described the suspect as approximately 40 years old, standing around 5’11” tall. He was last seen wearing a blue jacket, green pants, black ski hat, and tan boots.
The incident comes amid an alarming spike in antisemitic hate crimes in New York City, which has seen nearly 50 bigoted infractions so far this year, according to police data.
Experts, in part, attribute the rise in attacks against Jewish individuals to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has been engulfed in war since Hamas terrorists launched a deadly attack against Israelis in early October.
Since the war began, over 29,000 people have been confirmed killed in the aggression, including around 28,000 Palestinians and 1,500 Israelis, according to the United Nations.
In New York, the home of around 1.6 million Jews, the situation has led to significantly increased tensions, which have become increasingly violent.
Since October, the NYPD has recorded 193 antisemitic hate crimes in the five boroughs, which is nearly double the 100 such incidents during the same timeframe a year prior.
Jewish people made up nearly two-thirds of all hate crime victims between October and the start of February.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website, on Twitter @NYPDTips.
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