Luca Robert Lewis, a member of pro soccer team the New York Red Bulls, claims that his life was threatened by Palestinian supporters on a visit to New York City on Thursday.
Lewis told his social media followers that “6-8 Palestinian men” brandishing knives approached him, asked if he was Jewish, and then threatened to kill him if he was.
The MLS player took to Instagram to tell his tale as a warning to others.
“Last night I was walking in New York with a friend and all of a sudden a group of 6-8 Palestinian men walk up to me and asked me where I was from. I responded and said ‘New York.’ Then one guy asks me if I am Jewish,” Lewis said in the post.
“I paused for a moment in confusion and thought about it, then I saw them withdrawing knives. I obviously said no. The guy looked at me with such disgust in his eyes and said ‘Good.’ As I started walking away, I felt extremely angry and felt like I had to say something,” Lewis continued.
Lewis then asked the men “What if I was Jewish?” The MLS player then wrote that one of the attackers got in his face and said, “I’ll beat the fuckin shit out of you and kill you.”
Lewis added that since he is not “visibly Jewish” he didn’t feel quite as exposed, but he worried for the safety of people who are obviously Jewish. “Everyone who is ‘visibly’ Jewish now has to be scared to walk around New York in peace and that’s a huge problem,” he wrote.
There have already been several incidents of Jews being attacked across the country generally, but also specifically in New York. Last week, pro-Palestinian protesters accosted patrons in a Manhattan restaurant, and a Jewish man named Joseph Borgen was attacked in Times Square.
This situation has become so tenuous in the Big Apple that the NYPD has increased its patrols in heavily Jewish areas of the city.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.