By: Fern Sidman

On an otherwise unremarkable Saturday evening in Manhattan’s West Village, a scene of casual dining and weekend conviviality was shattered by an outburst of venomous hatred that has since reverberated far beyond the walls of a neighborhood restaurant. As reported on Sunday by The New York Post, an antisemitic verbal assault erupted inside Mole Mexican Bar & Grill, leaving diners shaken and reigniting urgent concerns about the growing normalization of anti-Jewish hostility in New York City and across the United States.

“F*ck you, Jew”

At the table next to me at a restaurant in NYC tonight, this happened. A guy was ranting about Jewish people and Zionists, quoting Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens along the way, and a Jewish girl next to them intervened

He then freaked out (she sent me her… pic.twitter.com/L3NUu02tQK

— Max Towey (@MaximilianTowey) December 14, 2025

The incident, which unfolded around 8:30 p.m., was captured on video and later circulated widely on social media platform X, drawing swift condemnation and alarm. According to the information provided in The New York Post report, the target of the abuse was a Jewish woman who, after overhearing a nearby patron making antisemitic remarks, calmly and politely challenged what she perceived as hateful rhetoric. Her measured response, witnesses said, was met not with dialogue or restraint, but with an explosive barrage of obscenities, threats, and explicitly antisemitic invective.

A Night of Hate in the West Village: Anti-Semitic Tirade at Manhattan Restaurant Rekindles Fears of Rising Bigotry.

NOTE TO READERS: the man in this video, Greg Schlotthauer, is the same man in this story who spewed forth the most vile anti-Semitic hate… pic.twitter.com/NWA65v20du

— The Jewish Voice (@TJVNEWS) December 16, 2025

The footage, which The New York Post reviewed and published excerpts from, shows the man launching into a sustained tirade, hurling gendered slurs and anti-Jewish insults while invoking violent language directed at Zionists and Jews more broadly. His volume and proximity grew increasingly menacing, alarming nearby diners as he leaned toward the woman, at one point appearing on the verge of physical confrontation before being ushered out of the restaurant.

Witnesses described the exchange as deeply unsettling not only for its content, but for its intensity and one-sidedness. Max Towey, co-founder of the media outlet Roca News, was dining nearby and observed the incident firsthand. In an interview with The New York Post, Towey said the confrontation began with shouting from the man, drawing attention from those around him before the explicitly antisemitic language became unmistakable.

“It was just one-side yelling—just him,” Towey told The New York Post. “That’s when we started paying attention. Then we hear, ‘F–k you!’ Then we hear, ‘F–k you, Jew!’ And then everything that was captured on the video followed.”

Towey emphasized that the women targeted in the outburst remained calm throughout the encounter. “These are not combative women,” he said, according to the report in The New York Post. “They were calm, they were not yelling. After he left, they were shaken up and crying. It was shocking and deeply troubling to see.”

The man, who left the restaurant with a female companion, continued shouting as he exited, witnesses said. While no physical violence ultimately occurred, the psychological impact on those present was immediate and profound.

The incident has become emblematic, for many observers, of a broader cultural shift in which antisemitic expression is increasingly voiced in public spaces with little apparent fear of social or legal consequences. Towey, speaking to The New York Post, suggested that such behavior reflects a sense of emboldenment among individuals who cloak bigotry in the language of political grievance.

“I think people are emboldened,” Towey said. “I think people like this guy—and all these sort of avidly and rabidly anti-Zionist types—are tracing all the evils of the world to Jewish people.”

That sentiment has been echoed by Jewish community leaders, who argue that a dangerous conflation between criticism of Israeli policy and hostility toward Jews as a people has accelerated since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza. As The New York Post has reported in multiple investigations and opinion pieces, antisemitic incidents in New York City and nationwide have surged in the months following those events.

New York City, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, has long prided itself on pluralism and coexistence. Yet recent months have seen a troubling rise in antisemitic harassment, vandalism, and assaults—from graffiti and threats against synagogues to confrontations on subways, campuses, and, increasingly, in everyday social settings such as restaurants.

According to data frequently cited by The New York Post, the New York Police Department recorded a sharp increase in reported antisemitic hate crimes following October 7. While many incidents involve property damage or online threats, an increasing number feature direct, face-to-face intimidation similar to the West Village episode.

“What makes this incident particularly chilling,” one Jewish communal security expert told The New York Post, “is that it happened in a crowded, mainstream venue, not at a political rally or protest. It underscores that Jews are being targeted simply for existing openly in public.”

When contacted by The New York Post on Sunday, a woman who answered the phone at Mole Mexican Bar & Grill declined to comment on the incident. The restaurant has not issued a public statement as of this writing, a silence that some have criticized but others have attributed to legal caution as the incident continues to circulate widely online.

On social media, however, the response has been anything but muted. The video shared by Towey quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of views, prompting an outpouring of support for the victim and condemnation of the attacker. Many users expressed disbelief that such language could be unleashed so brazenly in a public setting in New York City.

“This isn’t about politics anymore,” one commenter wrote beneath the video reposted by The New York Post. “This is about hate being normalized.”

The episode has also reignited debates about the boundaries between free expression and hate speech. While the First Amendment protects even offensive speech, legal experts note that verbal harassment can cross into criminal territory when it includes credible threats or targeted intimidation.

Former prosecutors interviewed by The New York Post have noted that while this particular incident may not meet the threshold for criminal charges absent physical violence or explicit threats, it nevertheless contributes to an environment of fear that undermines public safety and social cohesion.

“Hate doesn’t need to end in a punch to do damage,” one expert told The New York Post. “The cumulative effect of these incidents is corrosive.”

For Jewish New Yorkers, the West Village incident is yet another reminder to remain vigilant in spaces that once felt unquestionably safe. Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the city have already heightened security in response to ongoing threats, but many say the greater challenge lies in confronting hostility embedded in everyday interactions.

“It’s exhausting,” a Jewish community advocate told The New York Post. “You go out to dinner, and suddenly you’re being screamed at because of who you are or what someone thinks you represent.”

The advocate added that while New York remains a place of resilience and diversity, incidents like this chip away at the sense of belonging that Jewish residents have long felt.

As The New York Post reported, the incident at Mole Mexican Bar & Grill is not an isolated aberration but part of a broader reckoning confronting American society. The resurgence of antisemitism—sometimes overt, sometimes masked as ideological critique—poses difficult questions for civic leaders, institutions, and communities alike.

What responsibility do bystanders and businesses have when hate erupts in their midst? How should cities balance free speech protections with the need to safeguard residents from intimidation? And perhaps most urgently, how can society stem the tide of dehumanizing rhetoric before it escalates into physical violence?

For now, the video from that Saturday night remains a stark testament to a moment when hatred spilled into a public space with startling ferocity. As The New York Post report emphasized, the challenge is not merely to condemn such acts after the fact, but to confront the conditions that allow them to occur at all.

In the West Village, the tables at Mole Mexican Bar & Grill have since been reset, and diners have returned. But for those who witnessed the tirade—and for many who have watched it unfold online—the echoes of that night linger, a sobering reminder that vigilance against bigotry remains an urgent and unfinished task.