Mayhem at elementary graduation
Parents’ ‘antisemitic’ beating
A Jewish mother and her husband were attacked and beaten at a Brooklyn elementary school graduation by an Arabicspeaking family, who taunted them with shouts of “Free Palestine!” “Gaza is Ours!” and “Death to Israel!” she told The Post.
The mayhem erupted at PS 682 in Gravesend just after the school’s fifth-grade graduation, which was themed, ironically, “All you need is love.”
Instead, the Jewish woman’s husband was thrown to the ground by members of the other family. One man put him in a chokehold, he said. Others grabbed his legs as they kicked and punched him. One woman repeatedly whacked him with the sharp heel of a black stiletto, the mother told police.
“They targeted my family because we are Jewish,” said the mother, whose 10-year-old twins witnessed the assaults. “A graduation event that was supposed to be joyous and memorable turned into a violent and traumatizing one.”
The mother, Lana, and her husband, Johan, a Dominican who is Catholic, recounted their horrific experience to The Post in frustration because the NYPD did not classify the incident as a hate crime.
But after the couple urged the NYPD to reconsider, a spokesperson said Saturday, “The Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.”
The Post is withholding the couple’s last names to protect their children’s privacy and safety.
An ‘upsetting’ cap
The graduation ceremony itself was uneventful, but Lana’s mother was upset when one student marched across the stage wearing his graduate cap marked “Free Palestine” and waving a small Palestinian flag. The grandma walked out.
A school administrator told another parent that the city Department of Education’s legal staff had OK’d the display as an exercise of free speech.
After the event concluded, Lana and Johan started to take pictures with their two kids in front of a PS 682 banner when relatives of the boy with the flag tried to push them out of the way, she said.
“We told them there was space for both families,” Lana said. “An older man turned to us and said ‘Free Palestine!’ for no reason. My husband told him this was not the time or place for that but the man cursed at him in Arabic, and shouted, “Free Palestine! Gaza is Ours! Death to Israel!”
While Johan argued with the older man, another man “just came out of nowhere, punched me in the head,” he said. “From there, I don’t remember, because there was so much going on and so many people on top of me. Then I was put on a chokehold. Somebody was holding my leg. It was chaotic.”
Their 16-year-old son tried to help his father, but he was punched in the face.
“A woman from the group came up from behind me, pulled me by the hair, and knocked me down on the ground, shouting, ‘I will kill you,’” Lana said.
Two male teachers rushed over to break up the attack.
Johan was taken to Maimonides Medical Center with scrapes, bruises and swelling on his head, face and body, photos show. Lana suffered a gash on her leg. Their teen son had a bloody nose.
One arrest
Cops made one arrest: Ez-Al Dean Bazar, 26, who punched and dragged Johan, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said, “Graduations should be times of celebration and joy, and we strongly denounce anyone who acts in a violent or aggressive way during such events.”
But he shifted blame to Lana and Johan as well: “Initial reports we have received from multiple witnesses indicate that both families engaged in aggressive behavior, but we are still investigating the matter and are simultaneously engaging with families.”