An Israeli woman got on a subway train in New York City and wound up being verbally harassed and then physically attacked for being Jewish. It happened last Thursday night as Lihi Aharon, a college student, and a friend were coming home after an event at her school. She got on a train near Wall Street and and saw a woman who was taking up several seats wither her belongings. She asked if she could sit in one of the seats and the woman refused to move her stuff. So Aharon and her friend sat across the aisle next to a Jewish man.

“She was yelling at him, shouting at him, ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is most great] and ‘Allah will kill you,’ ‘nasty Jews,’ she was citing clauses from the Koran and ‘when you see a Jew you got to kill him’ and she used a lot of profanity.”

She added, “I was talking Hebrew so she knew I was Jewish.”…

“After a few minutes she stood up and smacked my phone, she came over and smacked my phone down, and I told my friend, ‘Record this,’ I’m telling her in Hebrew ,‘Record this’ and my friend started recording and then she smacked my friend’s phone out of her hands twice,” Aharon told Fox News.

“Then she came to me, she ran to me and pointed on my face and then she was grabbing my face, like she was trying to pull my face off and she scratched me so hard and my face started bleeding.”

Aharon fought back and pushed the emergency button on the train. She asked people to call 911. The attacker, identified as 38-year-old Zarinah Ali was arrested and charged with assault. While police were waiting in the station to arrest Ali, she continued to direct abuse at Aharon and the Jewish man she’d been sitting with: “You nasty ass Jew. You a nasty ass mother******” She was also citing the Koran and repeating “Allahu Ackbar.”

According to the Jewish man, Ali’s anti-Semitic tirade began even before Aharon got on the train: “He said that she said it’s a shame they didn’t kill all of the Jews in Jersey City and that was a great thing and they should have finished what they started and awful, awful things.”

After the fact, Aharon made a video describing the incident. You can see some portions of the video shot on the train and in the station in this clip.

This story was covered by Fox News, the New York Post, and the local CBS affiliate in New York. But so far, more major papers in Israel have covered this than here in the US.

Meanwhile, another story involving anti-Semitism connected to the Jersey City shooting is getting some media attention this week. An elected member of the Jersey City school board suggested the attackers had a “message” about an “assault on Black communities of America” which needed to be understood.

Joan Terrell is an elected member of the Jersey City Board of Education, she says that the murders of the Jews in Jersey City may be justified. @jcps_district pic.twitter.com/H5o0yqpcnO

— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) December 17, 2019

If you read the whole thing, Terrell also seems to believe Jewish people might be selling body parts…? I have no idea what that’s about. The mayor of Jersey City called on Terrell to step down:

I saw this and i’m saddened by the ignorance her comments demonstrate. Her comments don't represent Jersey City or the sentiment in the community at all. The African American community in Greenville has been nothing short of amazing over the last week helping neighbors.

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 17, 2019

I also said I’m not going to mix words. My opinion is she should resign. That type of language has no place in our schools and no place amongst elected officials. Imagine she said this about any other community – what would the reaction be? The same standard should apply here https://t.co/QMLOlBuarR

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 17, 2019

The Governor of New Jersey has also called on Terrell to resign. At least this story is getting some attention. But again, no one in the media seems interested in connecting the dots. Finally, this clip shot after the mass shooting is pretty disturbing. As former assemblyman Dov Hikind says, “Antisemitism, a bigger problem than [it] appears.” He’s right but the media doesn’t want to talk about it unless the people involved can be identified as white supremacists.

SHOCKING VIDEO: As Jewish bodies were still laying in cold blood after being murdered by terrorists in Jersey City, a rep of @AmericansAA captured spontaneous antisemitic tirades blaming Jews for their own murder & ppl cheering it on!

Antisemitism, a bigger problem than appears. pic.twitter.com/WHmLtxANAE

— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) December 11, 2019