'He sucker punched me, pushed me over, assaulted me,' Joshua Merenfeld said
A Jewish man who was outside his apartment building in New York City having a cigarette on the first night of Hanukkah says he was sucker punched, leaving him bruised and bloody.
Joshua Merenfeld said he was attacked from behind, with the person yelling antisemitic slurs at him while clubbing and kicking him.
Why are we letting bigotries from across the world influence us in the United States? Jewish and Muslim Americans should not be getting attacked over what is happening in Gaza. It's not their war.
It's "our" war in that the U.S. government is doing it.
That doesn't justify attacking American Jews because of what Israel is doing and it also doesn't justify attacking American Muslims because you support Israel. They had nothing to do with it.
I just don't like it when people say "it's not our war". People say the same thing on social media on posts about the protests for a ceasefire. As long as the US is funding Israel, it is our war.
When I say "it's not their war" I mean that American Jews are not Israelis and American Muslims are not members of Hamas. Or even necessarily Palestinians. And as a member of one of those groups, I'd like to speak on behalf of both and say we're really fucking tired of being treated as if we're foreigners.
Thank you, well said. And, sadly, there are still plenty of people who see a Muslim person walking down the street and view them with instant suspicion.
Unfortunately, being told to "go home" because you're a foreigner is an integral part of the American experience. It's happened to literally every group that's come over for hundreds of years.