A New York man convicted of a violent antisemitic assault on an Israeli tourist received a sentence of just 90 days in jail ---and celebrated in the courtroom by smiling at the judge and flashing a victory sign with his shackled hands.
The incident unfolded in the heart of Times Square just days after the October 7, 2023 massacre, when Yahya Amin spotted a group of five young men, including a 23-year-old Israeli tourist, walking through Manhattan wearing yarmulkes.
According to the New York Post, Amin followed the group for several minutes, screaming antisemitic slurs and incitement to murder. He yelled that Hamas should have killed more Jews, that Allah should take the lives of all Jews, and that all Jews deserve to die. When the group tried to flee the harassment, Amin ran up from behind and struck the Israeli tourist forcefully in the head.
Amin was originally charged with seven counts, but Manhattan prosecutors reached a plea deal in which he admitted to a single count of third-degree assault as a hate crime. The 90-day sentence has drawn fierce criticism from Jewish community activists who view it as shockingly disproportionate to the severity of the attack.
The defendant's behavior in court only deepened the outrage. He arrived late to his morning sentencing, finally appearing in the afternoon accompanied by his mother, causing further delays while an Arabic interpreter was located. When Judge Althea Drysdale began reading his sentence, she noticed Amin was smiling openly and asked him to explain his behavior at such a serious proceeding. Through the interpreter, Amin replied that he was smiling because he wanted to look good for the press photographers.
Members of a Jewish community legal monitoring organization who attended the hearing expressed anger at both the lenient sentence and the defendant's demeanor. They said his smile and victory gesture conveyed satisfaction at having escaped a far harsher punishment by exploiting the overburdened prosecution system. Community representatives called the sentence a slap in the face to victims and warned that such leniency toward antisemitic violence sends a dangerous message at a time when antisemitic incidents are surging across the United States.
