A hateful driver snarled “F–king Jew!” as he swerved his van toward congregants heading to a Brooklyn synagogue during Rosh Hashanah, cops and law enforcement sources said.
The victims were walking in the street, approaching the Shaare Shalom Congregation on Avenue S near Ocean Avenue, around 5:25 p.m. Thursday when the reckless driver “edged toward” them “in a threatening manner,” authorities and sources said.
“F–-ing Jew! Drop dead Zionist!” the motorist sneered as he veered toward at least two men in an attempt to scare them, according to the sources.
A 50-year-old man who was crossing the street at the time and did not want to be identified told The Post the driver did not try to hit him or direct any vitriol toward him — but he witnessed the mayhem as he headed to the high holy day service.
“He’s beating one light and he had like loud Middle Eastern music, or foreign music playing,” the man said.
“He went down the block speeding, he did another turn [and] he visibly stopped those people in the crosswalk. He stopped them short, and then the individual was basically telling them, ‘Watch it, what’s going on?’ Then the individual inched up his car a little bit and said something about the Jews.”
“One person said he was veering toward him and he didn’t actually hit him,” the witness added. “He was speeding… these are narrow streets….You’re not sure if he’s just speeding or if he’s veering towards you, you know?”
But the pedestrian acknowledged that he was “very upset” by the motorist’s alleged statements.
“This guy was definitely reckless, but after I heard he made statements to those individuals, then I figured it was like a bias incident,” he said.
The driver, who appeared to be in his 30s, then took off in his black Ford Transit truck, heading north on Ocean Avenue, the sources said. He was still at large Friday.
No one was hurt during the hate-fueled spree.
The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.
In a similar antisemitic crime back in May, a maniac tried to mow down Orthodox students and a rabbi outside a Brooklyn Jewish school while allegedly yelling “I’m gonna kill all the Jews,” sources said.
The crazed driver, identified by cops as Asghar Ali, 58, was shown on video revving his engine and mounting the curb as he swerved toward Orthodox Jews milling around Mesivta Nachlas Yakov School.
No one was hurt in that attack either, cops said. Authorities listed five victims in the case: a trio of 18-year-olds, a 41-year-old man and a 44-year-old man.
Ali is a Pakistani immigrant livery cab driver with a history of mental illness, sources said at the time.
Police data show that complaints of antisemitic incidents in the five boroughs have spiked in the past year, with 275 through the end of September this year compared to 157 over the same period last year.
So far in 2024, complaints about antisemitic incidents have accounted for nearly 56% of all bias complaints in the city, up from 41% over the same span in 2023.