A hate-spewing Citi Bike rider slugged an elderly man in Central Park, called him a “F—king Jew pig” and even threatened to kill him — as bias crimes targeting Jewish victims continue to rise in the Big Apple, according to authorities and the victim.
The menace attacked 70-year-old Allan Ripp – a former journalist who now runs his own public relations firm and has lived on the Upper West Side since 1976 – around 6 p.m. July 13 along the West Drive near the 97th Street Transverse, according to cops.
In Ripp’s own written account of the harrowing crime, published in The Wall Street Journal, he said he was walking his daughter’s dog Biscotti when a man on a Citi Bike gave him “a hard shove with his left elbow.”
“I’m not one to call out cyclists for disregarding park rules, but the push was so intentional that I blurted, ‘Hey, you’re not allowed to ride your bike on the path,’ Ripp wrote.
Then the passing biker turned back toward him, “his eyes bugging with rage.”
“I tried to apologize, but he was already wound up,” Ripp said. “‘You f—ing Jew pig. I am going to kill you and your animal,’ he screamed. In seconds he was upon me, spitting at me and hurling ‘Jew! Jew! Jew!’ while pummeling my face.”
The seething attacker’s blows struck Ripp in the neck and wrist, and grazed his cheek.
The victim suffered minor injuries and was not hospitalized.
“My father had told me stories about confronting prejudice in the 1960s, and I’d had insults about money-grubbing tossed at me at my Pittsburgh high school,” he said of his feelings in the aftermath of the assault. “But this attack was different. It seemed like an act of war.”
The suspect was still on the loose Friday, and video released by the NYPD shows him heading south on his bike.
He is described as a man with a slim build and medium complexion, last seen wearing an orange baseball cap, white T-shirt, black pants, black sneakers and carrying a cross-body bookbag, cops said.
The department’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident, cops said.
In July alone, the task force investigated 30 anti-Jewish offenses, compared to only 10 during the same period last year, according to data released earlier this week.
Antisemitic hate crimes made up the majority of the 52 bias offenses investigated by the department last month, the data shows. The NYPD probed 48 hate crimes in July 2023.
So far this year, 229 anti-Semitic hate crimes have been reported to the NYPD through Sunday, according to the latest data available.
By that time last year, 126 such incidents were reported.
Ripp hasn’t had the best of luck walking in Central Park over the years.
Another terrifying encounter in the park back in 2016 left Ripp a fingertip short when his pal’s golden retriever chomped down on it, he previously told The Post.
