On Thursday, April 24, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was halfway through a tour of the East Coast, speaking to large audiences about his plans to starve the people of Gaza. That night, he was scheduled to speak at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the Chabad Lubavich Hasidic Jewish movement, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Ben-Gvir’s arrest, though United States leaders subsequently denounced that warrant and said they would not enforce it. Every stop on Ben-Gvir’s tour was met with protests, and April 24 was no exception.
E*, a 29-year-old Israeli American woman, went with a friend to protest Ben-Gvir’s appearance at Chabad’s headquarters—in part because E*, who grew up in the tri-state area, attended Chabad synagogues with her family as a child. But within an hour, she left Crown Heights in an ambulance: hundreds of Chabad members and supporters of the far-right minister surrounded a few dozen anti–Ben-Gvir protesters, she said, and one threw something at her head.
Six people were arrested. One video from the scene shows a woman being surrounded by a group of men chanting “Death to Arabs” and lunging at her; another shows a woman being attacked by a man who stole her Palestinian flag. The incident was denounced by City Councilmember Crystal Hudson and made national news with reports on CNN and CBS News. New York politicians were quick to call the anti–Ben-Gvir protesters antisemitic, though many of them were Jewish themselves. (Elise Stefanik, the district’s Republican congresswoman, called them “pro-terrorist antisemitic anarchists,” and called for a federal investigation.) Pictures of E* in a keffiyeh, covered in blood, went viral.
Here’s her account of what happened that night.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
So, what happened Thursday night?
A couple of my friends and I went to protest Ben-Gvir’s visit, to protest his role in the genocide in Gaza. We got there around 9:40. When we got there, there were 30, maybe 40 other people. We were chanting, you know, “free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” I noticed that there were Chabad kids who were given these big, flashing lights, maybe to blind us. And they threw eggs at us. I got hit with an egg. There was a bottle of liquid that was thrown near me. They were playing EDM music. It was hundreds of them.
At one point, the Chabad people there, like in this mob, decided to break down the barrier between us. So they ran past the police and surrounded us. Then a few minutes after that, we all huddled together. We decided it wasn’t safe and that we needed to leave. The crowd surrounding us was mostly men.
A lot of them were speaking Hebrew. They were yelling at us, calling us sharmuta [used like the word “bitch” in spoken Arabic and Hebrew].
Some of the other protesters spoke to the police and asked if they would escort us to the closest train station. They wouldn’t let us go there. Instead, they made us walk down Eastern Parkway, and basically, we were being followed and harassed and assaulted on our way there. At that point, I got a little split up from my friend, so I was kind of looking for them in the crowd.
We reconnected, and seconds after that, something hit me in the head. We’re not sure exactly what the object was, but it was some hard object. Then I started feeling the blood running down my face, and I got anxious, and I started crying. It was scary. My friend screamed for help. Someone there was a nurse. Someone there had a first aid kit. So they sat me down, and then other [anti–Ben-Gvir] protesters were surrounding me, to protect me.
Were you all still being followed at this point? Where were the police?
At this point, yes, we were still being followed by the mob. And that was moments before EMS came—as I was walking to EMS, people were taking pictures of me. There was a little child who screamed, “She can stop faking it now!”
They put me in the ambulance, put me in a neck brace, gave me three stitches and a tetanus shot, and assessed me for a concussion. I had lost a lot of blood.
Some lawmakers like Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler called the protest itself an antisemitic attack, but they do not appear to have commented on you as a Jewish person getting attacked. What’s your response to that?
From my experience in the Palestinian movement, a lot of protesters are Jewish. A lot of us are. The only reason why it’s not being commented on is because it changes the narrative of Jewish safety, when in reality, Zionism is really unsafe for Jewish people, too, because we are part of the Palestinian liberation movement. As long as we speak out against genocide and confront institutions we are always at risk of getting hurt by people who protect Zionism. It has nothing to do with Jewish safety, and I’m proof of that.
Now it’s been about a week since your injury. What’s happened?
It was surprising to see my pictures on the internet. I didn’t share them myself. But, you know, it was traumatizing. I grew up attending Chabad, with my family. So it’s been a bit shocking to have been treated this way. I did not think they would be as violent as they were.
Does being hurt like this change how you relate to the movement, to protesting?
Once I’m fully healed, I plan on continuing to go to protests. I think Zionist Jewish institutions are enabling this genocide by inviting war criminals to speak. I would like to see more Jewish people challenge that, and face it head-on.
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.