By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : It is a tale of three religions… four if you call Good Samaritanism and Humanity as a religion.
On a New York subway train, a group of anti-Semitic Christians attack some Jews, who are rescued by a Muslim student from Bangladesh at risk to his life and limb. And the Muslim boy, now being hailed as a hero, says he didn’t pay much attention to the religious overtones of the confrontation, he just intervened to help the victims.
It is a heartwarming tale. Befittingly, the local media has highlighted the random act of a do-gooder, who happened to be a Muslim to boot, over and above the apparent hate crime.
The incident happened on Friday last on Q train going from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Walter Adler and three of his friends were greeted with Merry Christmas by a group of about 10 young men and women.
Adler and his pal, Angelica Krischanovich, responded: “Happy Hanukkah.” Hanukkah is a weeklong Jewish festival of lights celebrated this year from Dec 4-12.
The other group apparently took umbrage. One of them immediately hiked up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Christ.
“He said, ‘Happy Hanukkah, that’s when the Jews killed Jesus,’ ” recalled Adler.
The group then allegedly began taunting Adler and his friends as “dirty Jews” and “Jew bitches”, and started physically assaulting them.
Amid the scuffle, Hassan Askari, jumped in. He tried to fight off the attackers, which gave Adler time to pull an emergency brake. The police entered the train at the next stop and arrested 10 suspected assailants.
One of them is Joseph Jirovec, 19, who had pleaded guilty to a 2005 hate crime against blacks. The police has yet to decide whether to press hate crime charges against him and his group.
Adler, a 23-year-old student at Hunter College, was so touched by Askari’s Good Samaritan act that he invited him over to celebrate Hanukkah. So, the two new pals — Adler with a broken nose and a fat lip, and Askari, with two black eyes — broke bread together the next evening and laughed off the bruises.
“A random Muslim guy jumped in and helped a Jewish guy on Hanukkah – that’s a miracle,” Adler told the media. “He’s basically a hero.”
But Askari, 20, an accountancy student from Bangladesh at Berkeley College in Manhattan, was self-effacing.
“I just did what I had to do,” the brown belt in karate said. “I did what people should do every day.”
“It is pretty sad that someone would get so offended over someone just saying ‘Happy Hanukkah,'” he added. “I don’t know why they flipped out so much. They must be angry people.”
He hit the nail on the head. People are just good or bad humans, not good or bad Christians or Jews or Muslims.
(Parveen Chopra can be contacted at [email protected])