Walter Adler: Assaulted for Being a “Dirty Jew” …and The Traveler from Samara Still Lives

(photos on next page)

There was a fight on the Q train. The last car was filled with people rolling toward Brooklyn.

A young man, accompanied by his girlfriend, had just been wished Merry Christmas by another group on the train.

The young man happily answered back with, “Happy Chanukah.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

One of a group of other young people on the train immediately hiked up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Christ. Fourteen men and women jumped the “Happy Chanukah” man, yelling, “He said, ‘Happy Hanukkah, that’s when the Jews killed Jesus…’ dirty Jews and Jew bitches.”

Much screaming, bellowing, blood loss and broken bones later…

The man who said “Happy Chanukah” is Walter Adler, 23, an honors student at Hunter College, who now has a broken nose and a split lip.

He had managed to pull the emergency brake as the train was hurtling toward DeKalb Ave. station

A horde of police came aboard. They arrested 10 people, charging six with assault and four with unlawful assembly.

Two of the men arrested that night have been arrested for race crimes before.

There’s a back-story: In the midst of the melee, Adler thought, “I’m bleeding all over the place, there’s lots of people, why isn’t anyone else doing anything?”

But one stranger on the train had risen to help. And he flailed away for all he was worth to help protect Adler as best he could. A bantam-weight man from Bangladesh. A young soul studying to be an accountant. His name is Hassan Askari. He is 20 years old.

Hassan Askari has two black eyes from the fight. But he also has a new friend. Adler.

Adler says Hassan is a hero. Hassan says his parents taught him to help those in need.

Like many a persons who, when faced with sudden threat, and through whom fierce angels suddenly surge , whatever one would call that Force of those moments of tension, that Force retreats when the threat is past….

leaving just the humble human form standing there, mumbling things like Hassan is saying now, “I just did what I had to do.”

And the ones who assaulted the travelers? Thus far, six were charged with assault, four with unlawful assembly. There may be additional charges.

from the NYPost by Jennifer Fermino, Erika Martinez and Peter Cox

One of those collared straphangers yesterday denied making anti-Semitic taunts and said his mother is Jewish.

Joseph Jirovec, 19 – the son of a city firefighter who is currently serving in Iraq – has pleaded guilty to a 2005 bias crime against blacks.

“We are not racist against Jewish people. That whole hate-crime thing is ridiculous,” Jirovec said.

He claims Adler’s group was drunk and taunted his group, and one yelled, “We killed Jesus.”

Jirovec will soon begin serving six months for his role in the attack against four men in Gerritsen Beach.

“I’m trying to stay out of trouble,” he said. “When I get out, I want to go into the military.”

(I sense what some readers might be thinking. Me too.)

Below are some of the pictures of the alleged attackers:

But, before we go there, just this. As you may have deduced, Hassan the brave Bangladeshi is a Muslim. And of course, Walter Adler is a Jew. And in that effusiveness that is beautiful, and for which many a Semitic person is known, Adler said… “A random Muslim guy jumped in and helped a Jewish guy on Hanukkah – that’s a miracle…”

Let us all who wish to, hold the thought that someday, in our lifetimes, such a matter will NOT be a miracle, that it will instead, be only USUAL and ordinary. And blessed, as always.

Here is a video of Walter Adler (who is no weakling), his heartfelt lady friend, and a gentle Hassan Askari speaking about what happened. Many will like what Askari says about his way of seeing others through his Muslim faith. Many will like what Walter says at the end about transcending all the religious arguments that keep people on ’sides’ rather than in harmony.

In that spirit, Hassan, and Walter and Company, will be celebrating the Jewish Festival of Lights together.

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CODA 1
The Samaritan Story
There’s quite a bit of skirmishing amongst different religious groups about the ‘real meaning’ of the Good Samaritan text in the NT. However, here, I just note the most simple aspect: In the OT, the Samaritans were a hated group.

The story goes, that when a traveler from another tribe had been beaten, robbed and left half dead at the side of the road, several persons from various social classes sidestepped the hurt man, or stepped over him and went their ways.

But, the Samaritan, one from a tribe that felt the dislike of many others, knelt at the injured man’s side, bound him up as best he could, carried him to shelter, paid the innkeeper to feed and keep watch over him, and made a troth to return and pay the innkeeper any additional expense, just so the injured man would be hopefully mended up again.

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CODA 2
Fight or Flight, not so fast. There’s also Freeze. Fight or Flight or Freeze.
Just to add a note to the idea that some who see others about to be harmed or being harmed, are in fact, just apathetic. That’s not always so, although we have quotes from people who say “I didn’t want to get involved. I could have been hurt or killed; I didn’t want to get involved.”

(The sensationalistic… and wrong… media attribution of ‘apathy’ to over 2 dozen non-witnesses in the Kitty Genovese case– a young woman was stabbed to death in a horrible repeat attack– has contributed to the idea that apathy is a usual stance in the face of terror. It isn’t. It’s unusual. )

But, it serves to note too, that though there is a ‘fight or flight’ instinct in people, …that there are several other instincts as well, that are not as often spoken about…. often people facing a crisis regarding strangers, feel neither fight nor flight, but just sit there unable to move….

Though not taking action may be caused by apathy, or by self-protection, or even cynicism, more often the person sits mute in a paralysis caused by abject fear.

Instead of running toward or away, the person who’ve described this at critical incident scenes, often say something like this: “I felt suddenly felt like a block of wood rooted to the spot.”

We see this in much mammal behavior too, when one of the group/herd is attacked… Some continue grazing as though nothing is occurring, some run, some fight, some stay rooted to the spot all big-eyed, and hardly breathing… which in the animal world, incidentally, is a signal to the predator that the ones rooted to the spot are vulnerable too.

But then there are those who jump in... What is that force that overcomes our deep instincts to run away or to become immobilized, and instead with a sort of Superman whoosh, is aroused by a sudden knell for mercy and protection?

Then, without thought for one’s own safety and life… we either try to intervene peacefully, or try to de-escalate a dangerous situation, or else jump right into the fray…

Scientists might be able to note where the brain lights up under critical event circumstances, or where the brain doesn’t light up. But that might not be the entire answer.

It may be that the sudden ‘must go to the aid of’ in order to protect and defend a stranger, is a physio/psychological/spiritual nexus that rises up in a person. Not simply an adrenalin surge. More than an instinct perhaps.

There may be a ’something else added, an x factor’ in the impulse to act protectively, that the mind, body and spirit create together only in the moments of extreme threat to human life.

Surely, though some have been badly injured, or died trying, whether in times of peace, or times of war… it is an amazing soulful phenomenon amongst humans, when one or another springs up to protect the life force of another person, whether they know that person or not, sometimes whether they even like that person or not.

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Pictures of alleged attackers