Rabbi David Niederman, President United Jewish Organizations (UJO) of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, made the following statement published by VIN News:
After tweeting yesterday about an alleged incident in which “a Hasidic man in grey van try to hit a woman and her baby in a stroller as she crossed a crosswalk, honking and touching the stroller with the car’s bumper,” Amber Tamblyn followed with a shocking, hateful attack on all Hasidic men.
“[T]his is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest.”
The UJO condemns in the strongest terms this biased, anti-Semitic attack on the Hasidic community, and calls on The New York Times to stop publishing commentary from her and other known anti-Semites.
“This would have been unacceptable against any other group. Unfortunately, too often people feel that such claims can be made against Hasidim and that when attacking the Hasidic religious community anything goes— from discriminating in housing against large Jewish families to attacking our religious educational system”.
“This incident has to be thoroughly investigated as an individual case. We call on Ms. Tamblyn to describe the entire incident and we ask the NYPD to thoroughly investigate what transpired at this busy intersection. We further ask for anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward with information, and/or any CCTV or dash-camera footage that they have from the area.”
The alleged incident took place Sunday, March 4th, about 2:30PM, with a grey van, on Vanderbilt near the Atlantic Avenue intersection, touching a stroller pushed by a woman, and honking and yelling. We sympathize with anyone who experienced such an incident however, Ms. Tamblyn draws an unfair and biased analogy.
The UJO calls on the Ms. Tamblyn to either back up her claim about several incidents in which Hasidic men tried to attack her or other female bikers or to apologize for making such a claim.
It’s unacceptable to generalize against all Hasidim, and the data shows that while there sadly were several fatalities of bicyclists in the neighboring areas, South Williamsburg didn’t have any biker fatalities at least since 2009, nor is there a higher rate of biker injuries here. To accuse Hasidic men of attempting to attack women is despicable and shameful. (For cyclist injuries and fatalities data complied by the City of New York please visit NYC Vision Zero http://www.nycvzv.info/# )
“Ms. Tamblyn ought to back up her claims against individuals, so that it can be thoroughly investigated. Blanket attacks against any group as a whole is a modern blood libel,” said Rabbi David Niederman. “As long she doesn’t back up her claims, one can’t take her seriously. It would be very odd for the NY Times to continue publishing her articles, with her credibility and judgment in question. Even if there were incidents, attacking an entire class of people based on an individual accusation is discriminatory and dead wrong.”
If anyone in Brooklyn near the intersection of Washington Ave and Atlantic Ave just saw a Hasidic man in a grey van try to hit a woman and her baby in a stroller as she crossed a crosswalk, honking and touching the stroller with the car’s bumper, please DM me. That woman was me.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) March 4, 2018
Thank you everyone for your kind words of support today. We are fine. But this is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest. I hope this guy is caught.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) March 5, 2018
I’ll say this once. To anyone suggesting I’m anti-Semitic for identifying a man as Hasidic who hit my daughter’s stroller in a crosswalk with a car then rolled his window down, wagged his finger and told me “Watch where you’re going”: I will not be bullied or intimidated by you.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) March 5, 2018
This is anti semitic NOT because he tried hitting her with a stroller – if that were true, it is wrong. This is anti – semitic because of her GROUP CLASSIFICATION, essentially saying that Chasidic men hurt women all the time: “any women who rides a bike can attest,” the word ‘any’ being an obvious exaggeration. There are 9,740,168 women who live in New York (https://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-new-york), and it is IMPOSSIBLE for every single one of them who ride bikes to attest that a Chasidic man tried to harm them. Therefore, it is anti-semitic propaganda by distorting facts and turning people’s… Read more »
Sorry #30, the story should have been that this lady was almost injured and she needs help identifying the careless driver. She can point out that he is Chassidic, nothing wrong there. However, when you use the opportunity to make some judgment about a group of identifiable people you are painting everyone with the same brush stroke. There may be some awful Chassidic drivers but neither you nor Ms. Amber can say for certain whether there are more bad Chassidic drivers than any other group of people. It may be that you remember a bad Chassidic driver more readily than… Read more »
She did not say all Chassidic men are bad drivers, she said this is not the first time a man from the chassidic community has tried to hit me. I guess your gemora learning skills have not transferred to twitter posts. It is so pathetic that you all are looking for racism. Maybe you should address her statement that chassidic Jews cannot drive. I have seen this myself that chassidic Jews have a tendency to speed and not put on their turn signals. So now I’m racist. If the blacks have bad driving tendencies, they should be called out just… Read more »
I love col you are so mean
You don’t have to knock number 4 to make your point, the fact is he’s right. I also go on this site but know that in doing so I’m virtually looking at the “daily news” . a paper that doesn’t get lower that that. As for the story, yes some chassidic people don’t have good road manners, but this woman definitly does NOT like Jews, so the question begs to be asked why is she living in a predominantly Chassidic neighborhood???
Actresses are spoiled and chassidim drive like maniacs. Is this news to anybody?
Moichin d’katnus
Welcome to New York.
Did this lady just move here or something? This stuff happens every day, all over the city. Most normal people just shrug it off, but in the age of social media, every stupid occurrence has to be posted and make headline news, otherwise your life is worthless. Feh.
BTW, I don’t at all condone the driver at all and he should just apologize and move on.
People nowadays are a bunch of hypercritical, hypersensitive drama queens.
I can just see this scene… She’s pushing the carriage with a kid in it while texting or blogging and NOT watching the traffic coming.
The guy told her off and SHE is upset.
Hey drivers – be nice to everyone even to Chassidim.
It was a big chilul Hashem! But to blame it on the Chassidic community as a whole was wrong!
Most of us drive perfectly fine and to put us – part of the chassidic community – at fault is wrong!
Read her words and then comment.
Big chilul hashem if this is true. Chabad needs to educate these guys.
there are two sides to the story one maybe the guy wasn’t the best driver but i bet 99.99999% that if this person was African American, Hispanic, Muslim, Etc she would turn a blind eye to the situation and not go on a Twitter rant about and try to shame our way and people. Just because he’s a chasidic man women child or anyone as a matter of fact does not mean that you have the right to bully them because of there religion, religion, creed, or gender this is classic leftist bullying to men
I’ll bet she was on her phone while crossing with her baby and wasn’t concentrating on what was going on around her.
It’s one thing to complain of bad driving, it’s another to accuse people of ‘attempting to harm her’. I seriously doubt anyone in Williamsburg drives around thinking ‘which woman should I try to run over today?’
Of course this is antisemitism. I can’t believe that people are defending her when she implies that Hassidic men are deliberately trying to run over women. This is bigotry of the highest order.
Everyone knows that plenty in Williamsburg drive like maniacs, but don’t actually cause harm (other than shock). She complained. Instead of saying this, and telling her what we all know from driving in NY, that this was a speeding guy on the go with no patience, go attack this lady as anti-Semtic.
Never heard of her and don’t want to, and hope her baby is fine, but I think she’s owed an apology.
Signed by someone who also drives fast, up to the inch but cautious – never tapped a pedestrian.
To number four
You have to understand that while you’re saying that COL puts up all these articles that stir up controversy, you too are reading these articles. If you really didn’t appreciate these stories so much, you wouldn’t bother yo waste your time on it.
She is very bad poet, search for her poems if you do not believe.
She plays secondary roles in little known movies.
No point making her famous at Jewish cost.
Chilul Hashem is a bad sin regardless.
I didn’t see one comment on the bikers and pedestrians who cross/bike improperly and then blame the drivers. Of course pedestrians have the right of way, but within reason…
If the man were black she wouldn’t have said a word.
This is antisemitism.
I suspect the vast majority, (statistics would bear this out) of the COL readers are not even Chassidic so I wouldn’t worry. About this lady. Her text was fine when she asked help in identifying the crazy driver who happens to be Chassidic. She took it to another level by making a blanket statement about too many Chassidic men trying to run over women. She was implying that misogyny and a general disrespect for women is causing Chassidic men to purposely drive recklessly and dangerously around, presumably, non-Chassidic/Orthodox women. Stupid comment and it is diverting from the real issue. Glad… Read more »
Could you calm down?
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/ny/actress-amber-tamblyn-goes-to-war-against-hasidic-men/2018/03/05/
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/03/06/amber-tamblyn-hits-back-at-after-her-tweets-are-called-anti-semitic.html
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/03/05/amber-tamblyn-slammed-for-tweet-saying-hasidic-men-attempted-to-harm-her-following-near-car-crash.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/amber-tamblyn-defends-tweets-draw-backlash-article-1.3857116
https://forward.com/fast-forward/395760/amber-tamblyn-called-racist-after-tweetstorm-about-hasidic-man/
https://www.nbcdfw.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Amber-Tamblyn-Under-Fire-Hasidic-Jews-475844333.html
Don’t be dumb, this story is all over the web, this actress was trashed on Twitter by everyone who saw her disgusting tweets, she’s being called a racist there and she’ll be called a racist here. Why? Because she is a racist.
All the commentators take issue with is she painted a broad brush on all Chasidim she wrote that it is not the first time they have tried to hit WOMEN
She was posting about Anti Chassidic attitude (very anti semitic)
Her statements are clearly in the singular, referring to a single individual who, she says, on multiple occasions has tried to do this to her and others like her.
Blowing this up into an accusation of Antisemitism is grammatically incorrect, and may be a smokescreen to deflect attention from the issue.
In this case, the appellation ‘Hasidic’ seems to be only for the purpose of identification.
wow comment number 4, you sound very unstable. you need to take a chill.
and to all of you defending her, are you all kidding? just because someone is a bad driver, and a hassidic jew, that means that all hassidic jews are out to get her? imagine if it was an african american who nearly hit her and was rude, would she be lumping all african americans into it? somehow I highly doubt it.
I don’t know what happens in Willy
But in Brorough Park and in Monsey , many drivers don’t respect others ( don’t let you pass , take your parking spot)
maybe chassidic people driving according to the laws of the road woild prevent such things from happening.
I take it that the he other brouhaha about the improper Purim party is dying down, and you’re looking for a new controversy to get hits. Its amazing. Your website actually makes money by stirring machlokes. Its astonishing, really. Good luck, after 120 when you have to give a din vcheshbon. Wait, let me guess. You don’t believe in that, do you? Right. Of course, not. If you did, you would be seeking an honourable way of making money, not running after and creating controversy upon controversy upon controversy. You realize, don’t you, that in the age of the web,… Read more »
I’m with you all the way. She made statements of fact. I have seen it myself This is on the chassidic community of williamsburg – not on her.
I see this alot when i’m in that neighborhood. We all know this total chillul hashem.
she’s right. what the man in the van did is totally wrong and is a huge chillul hashem.