A 23-year-old Orthodox Jewish nurse had a clump of her hair violently ripped out on a packed Manhattan subway car earlier this week as her attacker screamed “Jews are eating kids” — a brazen hate crime that unfolded as the Israel Day Parade marched just blocks away.

The suspect, identified by police as Diana Smith, 34, of the Bronx, boarded the C train around 2:15 p.m. on Sunday in lower Manhattan and began ranting to other passengers about “the dangers of Jews stealing wealth” before zeroing in on the victim with what the young woman described as an eerily calculated, targeted stare.

“She turned towards me, like very targeted, stared me down, and smiled with this very eerie smile that I’ll never forget,” the victim, a Montreal native who asked that her name be withheld, told the New York Post. “I decided in that moment I really did not want to show fear in the face of that, so I stared at her right back down, and I said, ‘So you see my reflection?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, and I smell it on you too.'”

The encounter escalated rapidly. Smith allegedly placed her hand on the victim’s throat. When bystanders tried to intervene, Smith shouted, “It’s OK for Jews to eat kids, but I can’t choke her down.” Moments later, the victim’s phone was knocked to the ground and Smith had both hands around her throat, kicking and shoving her, before ripping out a fistful of her hair.
The victim, who is only 5-foot-3, also suffered a concussion in the attack.

“I was a ragdoll and I couldn’t defend myself — there should have been a human barricade around me,” she said. “No one stepped up until it was too late.”

Smith was arrested after the train pulled into Canal Street, where the victim fled the car to flag down police while another passenger triggered the emergency button. Smith is now facing charges of hate crime assault, hate crime criminal obstruction of breathing, and aggravated harassment.

The victim was left shaken not only by the attack itself but by the inaction of those around her. “When I had to identify her, a ton of people were like, ‘Oh, we saw what happened, are you OK?’ And that was extremely triggering for me, because of course I’m not OK,” she said. “I kept just thinking, I’m not in Nazi Germany. How is this happening, and how is it that you saw what happened, and just were a bystander?”

Of her attacker, she said: “She’s pure evil, but she was lucid enough to know I was Jewish.”

The victim did not mince words about the city’s leadership. “I don’t think New York is protecting Jews. I don’t think Mamdani not going to the Israel Day Parade is helping.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)