By: Fern Sidman

Late on a quiet Friday night in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a young Orthodox Jewish family did what countless New Yorkers have done for generations: they took their children out for a walk to mark the close of the week and welcome the Sabbath. It was meant to be a moment of serenity, a rare pause from the relentless tempo of city life. Instead, according to law-enforcement sources and court records reviewed by The New York Post, it became a scene of horror that is now seared into the memory of a traumatized family—and into the city’s growing ledger of antisemitic violence.

As reported on Monday by The New York Post, the alleged assailant, 35-year-old Isharae Summers, began stalking the couple and their four small children near the corner of Nostrand and Willoughby avenues shortly before 11:30 p.m. The parents, ages 26 and in their mid-twenties, live just steps from where the incident unfolded. Their children, ranging from six months to six years old, were with them as they walked through their own neighborhood.

What followed, prosecutors say, was a torrent of threats so vicious that even hardened detectives found the language difficult to recount.

Court records indicate that Summers allegedly screamed that she would kill the family, targeting not only the parents but their children. The words themselves—too graphic to repeat in full—were reportedly hurled as she tailed them down the block. The family tried to keep moving, likely hoping the encounter would dissipate as so many unsettling urban interactions do.

It did not.

According to the criminal complaint cited by The New York Post, Summers allegedly closed the distance and then, without warning, punched the father in the chest and head. The blows left him with visible swelling and lingering pain. All of this, prosecutors say, unfolded in front of his wife and four young children—on the Sabbath, no less, a time when Orthodox families traditionally avoid using phones or driving, further complicating their ability to seek immediate help.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office later described the attack as “horrific,” a term that hardly seems sufficient for an episode in which a family out celebrating their faith was allegedly hunted and terrorized in their own neighborhood.

Summers, who also resides in the area, was arrested and charged with assault and multiple counts of aggravated harassment as a hate crime. The DA’s office requested $50,000 cash bail at her arraignment on Sunday, arguing that the severity of the alleged threats, coupled with the violence, warranted keeping her behind bars while the case proceeds.

But as The New York Post reported, Judge Margaret Martin declined the request, releasing Summers on supervised release.

The decision stunned many in the community.

“This was a horrific attack against a Jewish family walking home on the Sabbath,” a spokesperson for District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement carried by The New York Post on Monday. “Every person in this city should be able to safely worship and this type of antisemitic violence cannot be tolerated in Brooklyn. The defendant in this case is being charged with a hate crime and we will seek to hold her fully accountable.”

For Jewish New Yorkers, however, that promise of accountability increasingly rings hollow against a backdrop of statistics and stories that tell a darker tale.

The New York Post has, over the past year, documented a disturbing surge in antisemitic incidents across the five boroughs—ranging from graffiti and vandalism to physical assaults. According to NYPD data released earlier this year, Jews are the most frequently targeted religious group in hate-crime reports in New York City, outnumbering all other categories combined.

The Bedford-Stuyvesant attack is not an anomaly. It is a symptom.

What makes this case especially chilling is the brazenness of the alleged conduct: the threats were not muttered in passing or hidden behind a screen name online. They were screamed in the open air, at night, at a family with babies in strollers. The alleged assailant did not retreat when confronted with children; she escalated.

To many observers, the release of the suspect on supervised release feels emblematic of a justice system that is struggling to reconcile civil-liberties protections with the urgent need to protect vulnerable communities. In recent months, The New York Post has repeatedly highlighted similar cases in which defendants charged with hate-motivated crimes were swiftly returned to the streets, sometimes reoffending within days.

For Orthodox Jews, Shabbat is not simply a day off; it is the spiritual axis around which the week revolves. Families gather, walk to synagogue, and reconnect with one another away from the distractions of modern life. The notion that this sacred ritual can be interrupted by explicit death threats is deeply destabilizing.

Neighbors in Bedford-Stuyvesant told The New York Post that many families now avoid walking after dark, especially on weekends, and that parents are increasingly reluctant to let their children out of sight. Some have begun coordinating informal escorts after synagogue services. Others speak quietly about moving.

These are the invisible costs of hate crime: not only the bruises and police reports, but the slow erosion of a community’s sense of safety.

Under New York law, aggravated harassment as a hate crime carries enhanced penalties, recognizing that such offenses harm not only the immediate victim but the broader group to which the victim belongs. Prosecutors say they will pursue the charges vigorously.

Yet the family’s ordeal underscores a broader policy dilemma. Bail reform legislation enacted in recent years has sharply limited judges’ discretion to hold defendants pretrial, even in cases involving violence. While the reforms were intended to address inequities in the justice system, critics argue they have had the unintended consequence of weakening deterrence—particularly in hate-crime cases where the psychological harm is profound.

The New York Post has been at the forefront of the debate, publishing editorials and investigations questioning whether current policies adequately reflect the lived reality of victims.

In the wake of the attack, Jewish leaders in Brooklyn have renewed calls for stronger enforcement, targeted patrols in vulnerable neighborhoods, and a re-examination of pretrial release standards in hate-crime cases. Some are urging City Hall to treat antisemitism as the emergency they believe it has become.

For the family at the center of this story, the road back to normalcy will be long. Their children are too young to articulate what they witnessed, but parents know that trauma has a way of embedding itself deep, even when words are absent.

They went out for a peaceful walk to honor their faith. They returned with a story no family should ever have to tell.

And in a city that prides itself on diversity and tolerance, the fact that such a story can still unfold—on a quiet Brooklyn street, on the Sabbath—should serve as a wake-up call that the fight against antisemitic violence is far from over.