A recent assault in New York targeting Jewish diners, who suffered several injuries and said they were also verbally accosted with antisemitic slurs, is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a possible hate crime, The Algemeiner has learned.

Bita Golbari, 51, a New York resident, told The Algemeiner that the FBI called her on Tuesday to discuss the incident that happened during the early morning hours of July 20 inside and then in front of a kosher restaurant in Queens called Sezam, which serves Russian and Central Asian cuisine. Public affairs officials at the FBI’s New York field office did not respond by press time to a request for comment on the bureau’s involvement in the case.

Officers of the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) 112th Precinct who were at the scene of the crime filled out two complaint reports about the violent attack that were obtained by The Algemeiner. Neither police report classified the incident as a hate crime, just an assault with an intent to cause injury. The Algemeiner made multiple efforts to speak to the detective in charge of the case but to no avail. The NYPD’s Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information did not respond to a request for comment on why the assault was not being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Golbari was having dinner with her husband and several other Jewish couples at Sezam late at night on July 19 before the violence ensued. She said there was a table nearby with several men and, around midnight, they brought two women from outside the restaurant to join the table. Golbari’s close friend, Elham Sharga, 45, was with her at the restaurant that night.

“From the beginning of the night, I saw there was a table next to us with a few men sitting at it, and they were staring at us. They were looking at our table,” Sharga told The Algemeiner. “My spot [at our table] was really close to them. I was really scared, so I moved my chair to the other side to sit next to my other friend. I didn’t give them attention; I just moved my spot.”

The two women who came into the restaurant at around midnight were responsible for starting the violence and uttered antisemitic slurs, but the men at their table also participated in physically assaulting Golbari’s family and friends, Golbari told The Algemeiner.

The altercation began when Golbari’s group was getting ready to leave the restaurant at around 1 am. Sharga could not find her handbag and noticed that one of the women at the nearby table had taken it, she explained. Sharga approached the woman and asked why she took her bag. In response, the female attacker pulled Elham’s hair and threw her down. The other woman joined in and started hitting Sharga as she remained on the floor.

“Hitting me on my head, my belly, my back, my neck,” Sharga recalled. “They were pulling my hair. And then I heard the other guys come and they all started hitting me. I was thinking I was dying. I was screaming for help. My husband heard and came to help me. Then they started hitting my husband. His face was full of blood. His arm was bleeding.”

Sharga’s husband was pushed, thrown on the floor, punched and kicked, she said.

“I really don’t know how long I was on the floor getting beaten up,” Sharga added. “I saw them then running after my other friends and saying, ‘You guys are Jewish, we wanna kill you all tonight’ … They pushed Bita’s husband. I see everyone screaming and he was on the floor. His head was bleeding. I was bleeding everywhere; I was in pain. They really were killing me. I was getting beaten up from head to toe.”

Sharga was hospitalized following the attack and fractured her ribs. She said she still experiences pain throughout her entire body.

Golbari noticed the violence as she was leaving Sezam, she told The Algemeiner. 

“At the end of the night, I’m walking out the door and I see everybody is fighting,” she recalled. “I see my friend Elham on the floor and they [the two women] are kicking and hitting her, punching … and I see my husband and the other people all fighting with the guys.”

Golbari then quickly ran outside the restaurant to call 9-1-1. One of the women who was attacking Sharga saw Golbari go outside and began chasing her down the street.

“She came after me in the street,” Golbari said. “And I tried to hold up one of the cars in the middle of the street and I said, ‘Please call the police, someone is trying to kill me.’ So, she [the driver] rolled down her window and called the police, I think. I saw her phone in her hand. But the girl who was following me, reached me. She grabbed me and she said, ‘What the f–k are you trying to do? Are you trying to call the police on us? We are going to kill all of you Jews.’ And then she punched me so hard in the face I thought I was dead. And I said to myself, ‘She’s going to kill me.’ And I just ran for my life.”

“I crossed the street, I found a guy, I held his hand, and I said, ‘Please, don’t leave my side. Somebody is trying to kill me.’ He said, ‘Are you Jewish?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘OK, I’m going to help you. It’s OK, stay by me,’” Golbari continued. “He held my hand, and when the girl saw that he was with me, she ran. Her friend [the other attacker] saw that she was running, and she also ran.”

The kind stranger escorted Golbari back to the restaurant, where she found her husband on the floor, bleeding from his lip and head after being brutally attacked. By the time NYPD officers arrived at the scene, all the attackers had fled either by foot or car. No arrests have been made yet. None of the restaurant staff intervened to stop the fighting, which started near the exit and proceeded outside of the establishment.

The manager of Sezam, Andrew, was present when the incident unfolded but did not want to provide his last name. He told The Algemeiner he believes “it was just a common fight between two drunk people. It was nothing extraordinary … They were just fighting. Pushing themselves and that’s it.” He added that the restaurant has been in touch with the NYPD about the incident.

Both Golbari and Sharga told The Algemeiner that the disc jockey performing that evening at Sezam was sitting at the table with the attackers. Sharga also said when she asked the DJ to play Hebrew music that night, he blatantly refused. The manager of Sezam was unwilling to share with The Algemeiner the name of the DJ performing at the restaurant the night of the attack.

The incident came amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes in New York City following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. Jews were targeted in a staggering 54 percent of all hate crimes perpetrated in the city last year, according to data issued by the NYPD.

The NYPD complaint report from the early morning hours of July 20 noted that Golbari’s husband was punched in the face and back of the head multiple times. Golbari herself was punched in the face and neck, while Sharga and her husband both suffered several injuries, including to their face, legs, and arms.

Golbari’s husband was taken to the hospital on the night of the assault and remained there the next day as well. He was discharged but has since returned to the hospital twice because of a fever, loss of hearing in one ear, nausea, and severe headaches related to a head concussion and fracture he suffered during the attack, Golbari shared. He also had internal bleeding in his head that has since stabilized. He is still suffering from nausea and headaches.

“This is all because we are Jewish,” Sharga said. “Very sad. We just went out to have dinner. To have fun. Not to have these things happen to us.”