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Joseph Borgen was beaten in the streets while wearing a kippah. Now, he’s fighting in the NYC court system
(New York Jewish Week) — Before Joseph Borgen was beaten in the street nearly two years ago, on the way to a pro-Israel rally, he enjoyed playing basketball after returning home to the Upper East Side from his day job as an accountant.
In the time since Borgen, now 30, was attacked, that hasn’t been possible. The incident — in which five men shouting antisemitic slurs punched, kicked, pepper-sprayed and beat Borgen with crutches — left him needing surgery on his wrist. Only recently has he started going back to the gym.
“It’s something that is still lingering and I’d love to put it in my rearview,” Borgen, who is the eldest of five siblings, told the New York Jewish Week. “It doesn’t just only affect me. My little brother was seeing me on the news. He’s still a kid. We’re very close.”
The attack on Borgen drew national attention, and came amid a string of antisemitic assaults in the United States surrounding the May 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Now, Borgen is caught in a conflict of a different kind, one that illustrates the long tail of hate crimes that have faded from public consciousness. He doesn’t want the beating to define him, but finds that its after-effects have festered — and that a controversy over the ensuing trial of his alleged attackers has spurred him to become a passionate, if ambivalent, advocate against antisemitism.
“There is some value and good in speaking about what happened and just getting the message out there,” Borgen said. “But it’s not something I want to harp on.”
Joey Borgen, victim of a violent antisemitic attack last yr which took place few blocks from Times Square, said “The attack on me was no isolated incident. Pittsburgh to Poway to across the river in NJ— violent, deadly antisemtism is increasing to record levels”#ShineALight pic.twitter.com/4x29t9Pzi2
— JCRC of New York (@JCRCNY) November 29, 2021
Borgen was walking to a pro-Israel rally when he was attacked in the street in midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2021 — the same day Hamas and Israel announced a ceasefire after 11 days of conflict. A blurry video of the attack that circulated on social media showed a small crowd of men surrounding Borgen, kicking him and beating him with sticks. A photo of Borgen from later that night shows Borgen with a puffy red face, and wearing a neck brace.
“I was just wearing a kippah, listening to music, just minding my own business — and it all just erupted,” Borgen said, recalling the incident. “Before I can even really react or do anything, there’s a group of individuals surrounding me. I didn’t have the time to process what was going on.”
Borgen is still facing those who have been accused of attacking him — but that confrontation has moved to the courts. The lead perpetrator, Waseem Awawdeh, was charged with hate crime assault, along with a list of other charges. The case is still in process, and the next hearing is on April 20.
“I can’t even tell you how hard personally I’ve been fighting for this,” Borgen told the New York Jewish Week. “If there’s no accountability or consequences of what took place, what happened to me is going to happen to someone else.”
Borgen is currently worried that Awawdeh will go to prison for a small fraction of the maximum sentence he faces, which, according to Borgen’s attorney, is 15 years. That concern stems from reports in the New York Post and New York Sun that Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg offered Awawdeh a six-month plea deal.
Those reports have sparked a chorus of criticism, as well as a letter to Bragg by nearly two dozen groups lobbying against the deal. The signatories were a mix of right-wing, pro-Israel and Orthodox groups, including the Rabbinical Council of America, an association for Orthodox rabbis; the Zionist Organization of America, a right-wing organization; and Americans Against Antisemitism, a group founded by former New York State Assemblymember Dov Hikind, who represented a Brooklyn district.
“Failing to impose severe consequences here would send the dangerous and unacceptable message that Jews can be brutally attacked with impunity,” said the letter, which was sent earlier this month.
Hikind told the New York Jewish Week that he wants more Jews to vocally support Borgen. “We need to fill the courtroom,” Hikind said. “Unfortunately, we’re just not there. The community needs to come out.”
The six-month deal, however, seems like far from a sure thing. Awawdeh’s lawyer, Peter Marc Frankel, confirmed the deal to the Post in January, as did prosecutors on the case. But speaking to the New York Jewish Week on Monday, Frankel said he was unsure if the deal would come to fruition.
“I don’t know if it’s going to happen, frankly,” Frankel said. “It’s unclear at this point. I don’t know if it’s going to be a six-month deal, but I would not expect a shorter deal, certainly.”
The deal has not yet been openly discussed in court, and Borgen’s lawyer, Ross Pearlson, who is representing his client pro-bono on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, told the New York Jewish Week that “it’s not clear” if the six-month deal will hold.
“I’m unaware of any offers being made,” Pearlson said. “I believe that a year would be more appropriate. Six months to me still seems a little light considering the mob violence and the damage that was done to [Borgen].”
Bragg’s office declined to comment on the deal. The ADL likewise did not respond to requests for comment on the case.
Shortly after the attack, in 2021, a prosecutor on the case said that Awawdeh had told one of his jailers, “If I could do it again, I would do it again,” according to the Post. But Frankel told the New York Jewish Week that “that quote was taken completely out of context” and that Awawdeh has offered to meet and apologize to Borgen. He also met with the prosecutors to explain how remorseful he felt.
“[Awawdeh’s] behavior was the result of bad impulse control and a bad reaction to a bad situation, rather than an effort to try to seek someone out who is Jewish to commit a hate crime,” Frankel said.
Pearlson added that Borgen “has been traumatized by this event.”
“He’s very emotional when I speak to him about it,” Pearlson said. “He gets agitated for each one of these court appearances. When we talk about the case, he’s passionate about it.”
There are now five defendants in the case, including Awawdeh, and the D.A.’s office is treating them differently based on their alleged respective roles in the beating.
“Justice is not one size fits all,” Pearlson said. “It doesn’t move quickly, but in this case, it’s not the D.A.’s office delaying things or dragging its heels. There’s going to be some element of justice done.”
The fact that Borgen’s case is being prosecuted at all puts it in the minority of hate crimes complaints in Manhattan. According to NYPD statistics, police precincts in the borough received 241 hate crime complaints in 2022, and made 118 arrests based on those complaints.
Bragg’s office told the New York Jewish Week that 92 hate crimes were prosecuted in Manhattan last year. His office currently has 20 open hate crime cases related to antisemitism for this year. A report last year in The City, a local publication, found that most hate crimes charges are dropped before any convictions take place.
Although Borgen remains involved in the case, and has spoken about his experience publicly, he suggested that it was still hard to think about.
“Some people have said, ‘God only put you through this because you can handle it,’” said Borgen, who is modern Orthodox and puts on tefillin daily. “But if I start to think about it in those terms, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to let it factor into my views on God and spirituality because if I did, it might make me start to question and wonder about things. I don’t want to go down that road.”
On March 9, Borgen appeared in court, sitting in the same room as his alleged attackers. While he could not comment on the specifics of the hearing, not wanting to impact court proceedings, he said that “it sucks to be in the same room as individuals who could have killed me.”
“I don’t like going to court,” Borgen said. “I do it because when I’m there with other people, a large group of Jewish individuals, it sends a message that we’re not lying down and taking this.”
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Trump Wants Say on Iran’s Next Leader, Claims Tehran Calling US About a Deal
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
US President Donald Trump claimed the right to join Iran in deciding its next leader as the war escalated on Thursday, with US and Israeli jets hitting areas across the country and Gulf cities coming under renewed bombardment.
In a phone interview with Reuters, Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – a hardliner who has been considered a favorite to succeed his father – was an unlikely choice.
“We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future,” he said.
Trump also encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces to go on the offensive.
“I’d be all for it,” said Trump, whose administration has had contact with Iranian Kurdish groups since the US-Israeli strikes began. He would not say whether the United States would provide air cover for any Kurdish offensive.
The attack is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little public support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern.
He said later in the day that Tehran was reaching out to the United States about making a deal amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran, adding that further action to reduce pressure on oil was imminent.
“They’re calling, they’re saying ‘how do we make a deal?’ I said you’re being a little bit late,” said Trump, speaking at an event with the Inter Miami soccer team at the White House.
Trump touted the US military actions in Iran, saying they were destroying Tehran’s missile and drone capability and that “their navy is gone – 24 ships in three days,” as he called on Iranian diplomats to request asylum and help shape a better country.
“We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran,” he said.
ISRAELIS WARN TEHRAN RESIDENTS
On the war’s sixth day, Iran launched a series of attacks on Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Fire crews in Bahrain extinguished a blaze at a refinery following a missile strike.
Two drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as an oil field operated by an American firm, security sources said.
The Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas including eastern Tehran, while Iranian media reported blasts were heard in various parts of the capital. An air attack killed 17 people in a guest house on a road northwest of the capital, Iranian state television said.
MANY MUNITIONS, IRAN‘S ATTACKS DROPPED
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier. He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran‘s missile production facilities.
Iran‘s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90% since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83% in that time frame, he said.
WARNING SIRENS BLARE IN MULTIPLE NATIONS
Azerbaijan on Thursday became the latest country drawn in, as it accused Iran of firing drones at its territory and ordered its southern airspace closed for 12 hours. Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it had targeted its neighbor, but the episode underlined how rapidly the war has spread since the surprise US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Khamenei on Saturday.
Along with the gleaming cities of the Gulf, in easy range of Iranian drones and missiles, Cyprus and Turkey have both been targeted. European nations have pledged to deploy ships to the eastern Mediterranean and hostilities have been seen as far afield as waters off Sri Lanka, where a US submarine sank an Iranian warship on Tuesday, killing 80 crew members.
In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
NETANYAHU SAYS ‘MUCH WORK STILL LIES AHEAD’
Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
On Thursday, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit a US tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire, the latest of numerous reports of such attacks.
Visiting an air force base in the south of the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s achievements so far in Iran had been “great” but that “much work still lies ahead.”
Iran‘s foreign minister said Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set by sinking a ship in international waters without warning. A commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Kioumars Heydari, told state TV: “We have decided to fight Americans wherever they are.”
The body of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike, had been due to lie in state in a Tehran prayer hall from Wednesday evening to launch three days of mourning.
But the memorial, expected to draw many thousands of mourners to the streets, was abruptly postponed.
Two sources familiar with Israel’s battle plans said that Israel, having killed many Iranian leaders, was now planning to enter a second phase when it would target underground bunkers where Iran stores its missiles.
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Israel Decided to Kill Khamenei in November, Defense Minister Says
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
Israel took the decision to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in November and was planning to carry out the operation around six months later, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday.
Khamenei was killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign that began on Saturday in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike.
The joint air assault is nearing the end of its first week after opening salvos killed the country’s leaders and set off a regional war, with Iranian attacks in Israel, the Gulf and Iraq, and Israeli attacks against Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Already in November we were convened with the prime minister in a very tight forum and the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] set the goal of eliminating Khamenei,” Katz told Israel‘s N12 TV news. The timing was set for mid-2026, he said.
The plan was eventually shared with the Washington and brought forward around January after protests broke out Iran, when Israel was concerned its pressured clerical rulers might launch an attack against Israel and US assets in the Middle East, Katz said.
Israel has said its aim is to eliminate the existential threat it sees in Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile project, and to bring about regime change. Iran’s rulers have so far shown no sign of relinquishing power.
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China in Talks With Iran to Allow Safe Oil and Gas Passage Through Hormuz, Sources Say
An oil tanker unloads crude oil at a crude oil terminal in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, China, July 4, 2018. Picture taken July 4, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
China is in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as the US-Israeli war on Tehran intensifies, three diplomatic sources told Reuters.
The war, which entered its sixth day on Thursday, has left the critical shipping passageway all-but shut, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
China, which has friendly relations with Iran and relies heavily on Middle Eastern supplies, is unhappy about the Islamic Republic’s move to paralyze shipping through the Strait and is pressing Tehran to allow safe passage for the vessels, according to the sources.
The world’s second-largest economy gets about 45% of its oil from the Strait.
Ship tracking data showed a vessel called the Iron Maiden passed through the Strait overnight after changing its signaling to “China-owner,” but far more sailings will be needed to calm global markets.
Crude oil prices are up more than 15% since the conflict began amid production stoppages as Tehran attacks energy facilities in the Gulf as well as ships crossing the Strait.
Its missiles have also reached as far afield as Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, destabilizing global markets and prompting major economies to warn about inflation risks.
Crude tanker transits through the strait fell to four vessels on March 1, the day after hostilities broke out, versus an average of 24 a day since January, Vortexa vessel-tracking data showed.
Around 300 oil tankers remain inside the Strait, according to Vortexa and ship tracker Kpler.
Sugar industry veteran Mike McDougall told Reuters that Middle East sugar executives say there are some ships transiting the Strait at the moment, all of which are either Chinese or Iranian-owned.
Jamal Al-Ghurair, the managing director of Dubai-based Al Khaleej Sugar, told Reuters some ships carrying sugar are currently allowed to pass through the Strait while others are not, without giving further details.
Iran‘s government said earlier in the week that no vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, European countries or their allies would be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but the statement made no mention of China.