This young man did a very courageous thing. He stepped in to try to aid people he didn't even know and he did so, apparently, without any assistance. The truth is he could have ended up taking a terrible beating and I'm sure there were plenty of other passengers just sitting back afraid to get involved. And the fact that he's a Muslim, and knew that the people he was trying to help were Jewish, only underscores what a very decent human being he is.

When the people who said Merry Christmas to all were told by the jews 'happy hanukah' I wonder if the jews said it in a way that was retortful or instigating a slur. I BET IT WAS. still no one should have fought, but I bet the jews said it kind of snakily.

Headline: Muslim student saves Jewish boys from anti-semitic attackers,one of whom is Jewish!!

You 'bet'? Who cares what you bet!?No proof. All conjecture. Your opinion as as worthless and someone who says Askari rode in on Al-Buraq to save the Jews in the train. Utter crap. I'm glad he stepped in to help strangers, Jewish or not, but your 'snakily' reference leaves no doubt as to what you think of Jews. Pathetic.

First thank you for Ynet....Second thank you again for NYC...I have no comments anymore....I don't need no more than NYC said....

whatever tone of voice, warrants a beating? There is NO EXCUSE for anyone raising their hands to their fellow citizens for something they may have said, no matter how offensive or threatening. If you think "Happy Hanukkah" is an offensive remark, then you and all the others need some serious tolerance training. The criminals who beat the Jews and the Muslim are nothing but barbaric miscreants who deserve to be arrested and charged with assault, battery, harassment and hate crimes. They represent the worst our nation has to offer. Thank you, Mr. Ashkari for your courageous actions. You stand out as a beacon of light in the darkness of intolerance and ignorance.

I ask that in admiration!! I have often wondered what 'Judaism' had been like had we not been expelled from our Land.

It's ridiculous to assume they wanted a fight?! I would have said the same thing.

after all, he's Muslim. Where is your usual racism????

Throughout history, until the 19th century, there were no such things as secular Jews. Jews were religious or they were not Jews. They had no choice. Therefore, all the fighting done by Jews (and there were many instances of resistance) was done by "religious" Jews. In the Lebanon war last year, many of the soldiers and especially the heroic ones were religious. The Kippa Sruga boys have replaced the Kibutznicks as Israel's best soldiers. Your tirade against the Prushim, or as you call them the "Rabbis", reveals an obvious prejudice on your part. And where did you get the idea that the Tzedokim were the Macabees? FYI, the Tzedokim and Prushim lived 200 years after the Hanukkah story; during the Roman rule. The Tzedokim were a small wealthy corrupt upper class that bribed the Romans for important positions while the Prushim were the main stream Jewish population. So please get your facts straight and don’t rewrite history just to promote your own agenda.

unlike the morally brave hero in the article.

http://www.ksn.com/news/also/12425926.html

Hate crimes" "HATE CRIMES" H A T E C R I M E S ? INTERESTING........................................... PERHAPS RAPE IS A "LOVE" CRIME? BY IT'S VERY NATURE ASSAULT & BATTERY CAN ONLY BE A "HATE CRIME" SO, RAPE DOES NOT AT LEAST HAVE PARITY? LET'S KEEP TO THE TRUTH; THIS B.S. IS IN ACTUALITY A RACE CRIME! SO, HAD THE IDENTICAL "INCIDENT" TAKEN PLACE BETWEEN TO GENETICALLY SIMILAR INDIVIDUALS, IT WOULD NOT BE A HATE CRIME? HAD THE VICTIMS NOT BEEN VERBALLY ASSAULTED PRIOR TO, WITH ETHNIC SLURS IN AN EQUALLY OR EVEN LESS BRUTAL A MANNER, IT WOULDN'T BE A HATE CRIME? WERE RACE CONSIDERATIONS NOT FACTORED IN HERE, I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO CITE THIS FACT AND, NOTE THE AUTHENTICALLY RACIST NATURE OF THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THOSE BRUTALLY ASSAULTED BY ETHNIC EQUALS BUT, NOT AFFORDED THE FULL POWER OF JUSTICE DUE TO A POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TECHNICALITY. THE REAL QUESTION IS DOES THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME OR; DOES IT FIT THE RACE?

We need more information. Saying "Happy Hannukah" and "Merry Christmas" are normally very pleasant exchanges that don't lend themselves to a fight. Were the Jews on the subway dressed in such a way that made it clear they were Jewish, and did the "Christmas" people say the greeting in an in-your-face and menacing way towards the Jewish passengers, such as in a hate crime? Or were people just innocently and cheerfully saying "Merry Christmas" and the "Happy Hannuka" was thrown back as a retort and meant as an insult? The crowd who beat the Jews, were they the same as the ones who said "Merry Christmas"? How can we decide the truth about this situation without more details. Guess I'll have to poke my head in at the New York Times website.

When G-d made the world, G-d made two ways to repair each thing: With harshness or with compassion. With a slap or with a caress. With darkness or with light. And G-d looked at the light and saw that it was good. Darkness and harsh words may be necessary.But G-d never called them good... Even if you could correct another person with harsh words the One Above receives no pleasure from it. When He sees his creatures heal one another with caring and with kindness, that is when G-d shines G-d smile upon us.

the fact that this was a group of RUSSIAN Jewish kids that was attacked. I bet if the attackers were Russian speaking that would be in first paragraph in all caps!

This was an antisemitic attack, wasn't it? so why is all the emphasis on muslim helping jews and not about some racist guys? Why not the ususal outcries that I regularly read if such a thing happens in Europe? "Come and move out of that antisemitic country and to the motherland?" I don't read anything about the attack itself in the replies of the people here.

I doubt that the lot yelling merry whatever were actually christians, ok buddy.... its not very christian to attack people, whoever they may be for saying happy whatever so lets drop the " christian" bias from your next post thanks

Iranian people who are not seeking Jewish harm. He should be rewarded by Jewish Organizations here in NewYork and can be the Next President of Iran.

Thank you for your kind words. I was amazed that I only got 1 Haredi negative trying to parrot the "Partyline". Even Joseph P.realizes that he doesn't have the knowledge or skill to engage in any debate. What I would like to do here is to focus on the core of Judaism - The Torah - and its greatness. I will not impose any agendas relative to origin, etc. The fact is that the Torah is an amazing treasure. But to understand any historical event or piece of history one has to understand its context. Context is comprised of the historical time, how people lived, technology, language, survival issues, surrounding peoples and threats, politics, economics, geography, etc. History does not occur in a vacuum. So we now focus on about 2.5 million rag tag people, former brutalized slaves who escaped Egyptian persecution, standing opposite Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and in the course of his lifetime the Jews get the Torah (albeit religious say it was given at Mt. Sinai, it documents events that happened later). And somehow these beaten downtrodden people are given the most sophisticated moral legal system that the world has known predicated on justice and morality. It is a complex system that showed one how to live morally and has become the beacon for much of the Western world. But it doesn't stop there. The people of the Torah are real. Yaakov's daughter is raped and the brother have to deal with this situation. Yaakov mourns the death of Joseph. Abraham is challenged to sacrifice his only son. The people of Sodom want to violate Lot's guests and we are challenged to understand Middle East rules of hospitality and how could he offer his virgin daughters instead. There are stories of Joseph and his master's wife trying to seduce him and so forth. The stories are real and of real people not unrealistic "angels" who do no wrong. Moses hits the rock. Everyone makes mistakes. The language of the Torah is amazingly eloquent. But the Torah goes on to talk about the art of Betzalel, architecture and structure of the Holy Ark, the battles against enemies, the travelogue through the 40 years in the desert, and the psychology of the people. The people are not all righteous. They complain and drive Moshe crazy. They are real people. It teaches us the dietary rules which directs us away from animals that carried major diseases. It tells of us the roles of woman such as Miriam and the daughters of Tzlofchad fighting for their legal rights, the kindness of Rivka and later her scheming on behalf of Yaakov, etc. And if all of this is not enough, the Torah comes forth to show us its greatness as it teaches us compassion - even to animals. When it says not to "Cook a kid in the milk of its mother" and "The bull and his son you shall not slaughter on the same day" tries to ask us to show compassion to the female. How can we take her child and spouse on the same day? How can we have her take part in the demise of her child? And when the donkey of our enemy falls under its load and suffers, we cannot transfer our hatred from the master to the animal but must help right the donkey so that it doesn't suffer. This has been just a smidgen (Ketzei Mazleg) of the greatness of the Torah. And it doesn't stop there. It goes on with the Prophets and other writings. The most amazing collection in the world touching just about every aspect of life imaginable with a sense of morality, justice, believable complex predicaments and challenges, etc.

Thank you for your kind words. I was amazed that I only got 1 Haredi negative trying to parrot the "Partyline". Even Joseph P.realizes that he doesn't have the knowledge or skill to engage in any debate. What I would like to do here is to focus on the core of Judaism - The Torah - and its greatness. I will not impose any agendas relative to origin, etc. The fact is that the Torah is an amazing treasure. But to understand any historical event or piece of history one has to understand its context. Context is comprised of the historical time, how people lived, technology, language, survival issues, surrounding peoples and threats, politics, economics, geography, etc. History does not occur in a vacuum. So we now focus on about 2.5 million rag tag people, former brutalized slaves who escaped Egyptian persecution, standing opposite Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and in the course of his lifetime the Jews get the Torah (albeit religious say it was given at Mt. Sinai, it documents events that happened later). And somehow these beaten downtrodden people are given the most sophisticated moral legal system that the world has known predicated on justice and morality. It is a complex system that showed one how to live morally and has become the beacon for much of the Western world. But it doesn't stop there. The people of the Torah are real. Yaakov's daughter is raped and the brother have to deal with this situation. Yaakov mourns the death of Joseph. Abraham is challenged to sacrifice his only son. The people of Sodom want to violate Lot's guests and we are challenged to understand Middle East rules of hospitality and how could he offer his virgin daughters instead. There are stories of Joseph and his master's wife trying to seduce him and so forth. The stories are real and of real people not unrealistic "angels" who do no wrong. Moses hits the rock. Everyone makes mistakes. The language of the Torah is amazingly eloquent. But the Torah goes on to talk about the art of Betzalel, architecture and structure of the Holy Ark, the battles against enemies, the travelogue through the 40 years in the desert, and the psychology of the people. The people are not all righteous. They complain and drive Moshe crazy. They are real people. It teaches us the dietary rules which directs us away from animals that carried major diseases. It tells of us the roles of woman such as Miriam and the daughters of Tzlofchad fighting for their legal rights, the kindness of Rivka and later her scheming on behalf of Yaakov, etc. And if all of this is not enough, the Torah comes forth to show us its greatness as it teaches us compassion - even to animals. When it says not to "Cook a kid in the milk of its mother" and "The bull and his son you shall not slaughter on the same day" tries to ask us to show compassion to the female. How can we take her child and spouse on the same day? How can we have her take part in the demise of her child? And when the donkey of our enemy falls under its load and suffers, we cannot transfer our hatred from the master to the animal but must help right the donkey so that it doesn't suffer. This has been just a smidgen (Ketzei Mazleg) of the greatness of the Torah. And it doesn't stop there. It goes on with the Prophets and other writings. The most amazing collection in the world touching just about every aspect of life imaginable with a sense of morality, justice, believable complex predicaments and challenges, etc.

First of all Jews at no time were "homogeneous" and religous. Dina's brothers were not sitting reading Tehilim when the news of her rape came. They got up and killed the perpetrator and his clan. There were those more knowledgeable and those engaged in every profession needed to survive as a people. But remember that when Am Yisrael was fighting against Amalek and Moshe was holding his weary hands up, the people fought. They didn't pray and leave everything up to G-d. Throughout the Torah, Devorah led with Barak Ben Avinoam. The people remembered Yiftach the bastard when they needed him. He was otherwise an outcast and certainly not a scholar. Jews span the spectrum. They lived together and had varying degrees of observance. The issue was that there were no institutionalized formalized alternatives to what today you may call orthodoxy. I won't dispute that there are a few units with religious kids but they are by far an exception rather than the rule. My writings come from extensive reading of Tanakh, Mishna, Talmud, Josephus Flavius, Septuagint, Vulgate, archaeology, studies of multiple Semitic languages, and historical sources. Your imposing highly biased "tirade" on them reveals that you probably come from a closed "school of thought" that stifles research and knowledge and villainizes anyone who does not "parrot" the official Haredi party canned speeches. The Saducees or Tzedukim were a dynasty going back to Tzadok the high priest and ending at the time of the Macabees. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadok_(High_Priest) The Pharisees or Perushim are explained in the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees "Pharisaic sect was re-established as Rabbinic Judaism — which ultimately produced normative, traditional Judaism, the basis for all contemporary forms of Judaism" There are numerous other sources that were condensed into the presentation of the historical conflict that I described. So, in fact, It is you who needs to get your facts straight. So after you go back and do some research you will find that I was correct in what I wrote and that it was based on multiple sources. By the way what exactly is my agenda? I would really like to know.

please watch the video #44

Let's not forget also that the book of Maccabees makes no mention whatsoever of a 'miracle' wherein oil burned for eight days. What it does make eminently clear, however, is that when Judah Maccabee's rebellion was faltering and starting to lose ground, he signed a treaty of alliance with the Romans. So we can ultimately thank him for the latter day destruction of the Temple and of Judea.

Every news media i.d. the fellow subway rider by name. Except the ADL, is it that hard to recognize his Arabic Name and print it?

did anyone else notice these kids were riding the subway on shabbos? doesn't it say something in the torah about not following commandments and then being faced with antisemetism?