Knife Wielding Punks Attack Israeli Tourists at Bklyn Subway Station

By Andy B. Mayfair

A pair of women were attached by knife-wielding punks at the Avenue I station near McDonald Avenue in Midwood, police said.

The victims: a New York City resident and a visitor from Israel. The attackers: teens, one of whom was described as a female in a white head cloth.

Shelly Zwebner, 20, told the New York Post that she was pushed down a flight of stairs. There is even a video of the attack.

Another teen, male, grabbed Zwebner’s handbag and started punching her. His female accomplice grabbed the victim’s hair and yanked.

“The panicked victim shed her coat and pleaded with her assailant as the thief held out a hand and demanded her valuables, the video shows,” the Post’s team of reporters, Larry Celona, Ben Cohn and Ruth Weissmann, noted. “At one point, another straphanger walked by the mugging-in-progress but did not intervene.

“The coldhearted crooks, who threatened both women with a blade and a Taser but didn’t use the weapons, kept up the brutal beating for nearly five minutes — then took off with the victims’ iPhones, cash and credit cards, police said,” the Post piece continued.

The victims were treated for their injuries at nearby Maimonides Hospital with cuts and bruises.

“They came about two weeks ago, her and her friend,” Bekim Jashari, super for Zwebner’s mother’s Ocean Parkway apartment,” told the Post. “The family spends time going back and forth between Israel and here. You know, it’s a quiet neighborhood. I heard on the news what happened. I’m very surprised.”

Zwebner’s mother, speaking from Israel via texts to the super, told The Post that “when she viewed the video of the “brutal attack,” and was so worried she arranged for her daughter to fly home immediately with her also-rattled 21-year-old friend. Investigators called the attack “a crime of opportunity” and do not believe the victims were specifically targeted, officials said.” (Check out the full story at https://nypost.com/2019/12/07/tourists-robbed-at-knifepoint-inside-brooklyn-subway-station/).