A Jewish New Yorker described Tuesday how he was stabbed just centimeters from his heart by a hateful sicko — who made a chilling promise before lunging at him on a Brooklyn street.
“I’m going to kill a Jew today,” the knife-wielding goon seethed before launching the antisemitic attack, said victim Elias Rosner, 35, in an interview with The Post on Wednesday.
Rosner, a member of the Lubavitch Hasidic community in Crown Heights, had just left the temple on Tuesday afternoon when he came across the still-at-large attacker spewing antisemitic slurs.
“I was waiting in a crowd of Jewish people and this guy started spouting stuff,” Rosner recalled.
The man “looked very serious,” Rosner said — but refused to cower in the face of the ugly threats.
“I guess I was the one guy that had the bravery to look him in the eye,” he said.
“So, he was waiting. He set a trap up for me a block ahead. He came around the corner and it just started happening.”
Rosner was stabbed once in the chest, at the corner of Kingston Avenue and Lincoln Place around 4 p.m., by the madman, police said, adding the NYPD was investigating the attack as an antisemitic hate crime — on the third night of the Hanukkah Jewish holiday.
The Brooklynite only narrowly escaped with his life — miraculously saved by his sweater, he said.
Rosner, who works at a pop-up Hanukkah donut shop on Kingston Avenue, said he’s trained in martial arts and was ready to defend himself against the armed creep.
“So, he brandishes his knife … I’ve been standing all day, and between fight, freeze and flight. I really only had to choose between freeze and fight, and I chose to fight,” Rosner recalled.
“I believe in standing up to bullies,” he said. “I knew it was on. I luckily had taken off my sweater to use as a sarong to catch the blade. I could just tell he wasn’t going to be doing anything fancy…
“I was able to catch most of the force of the blade with the sweater and that’s basically what saved my life.”
Rosner suffered a deep gash near his heart, but was able to walk away without serious injury.
He was treated at Kings County Hospital and released — while his attacker fled and remained on the loose Wednesday.
The NYPD released surveillance footage of the attack and of the suspect, seen wearing blue jeans and a black varsity jacket with the word “Genuine” on the back and the number “91” on the sleeve.
Rosner said the attack was part of the uptick in antisemitic sentiment following Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, with the anti-Jewish hate trickling down to Big Apple neighborhoods.
“It used to be when I was a kid we’d come out from a party late at night, and the worst thing we had to worry about was, ‘stop and frisk.Nowadays, it’s a lot tougher, but my motto is, ‘If you stay ready, you ain’t got to be ready,’” he quipped.
“Here in America,” Rosner added, “everybody has a right to live free of oppression, and we also have to stand up to bullies who are trying to take that away from people.”
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