(JTA) — The man who posted a viral video of a black woman berating an observant Jewish man on a Bronx subway train says he regrets posting the video.
In the video, the black woman angrily confronts a Jewish man who called her racist. She initiated the encounter by saying passengers would have offered their seats to a Jewish family but not to a black family.
“You tell me what I’m being racist towards … because you’re Jewish and I said if a Jewish family got on here, somebody would have got up,” she shouts. “That is not a racist statement. That is a factual statement.”
Chris French, who posted the video on Twitter May 24 using the handle Harry Plotter, said in a subsequent tweet that he didn’t think the video would attract so many viewers — 159,000 by Tuesday afternoon.
“I myself have been called racist just for posting, which is weak, but no matter,” he said. ” I regret posting now, because everyone has run rampant with the ‘angry black woman’ narrative, and it’s really disheartening.”
Israel National News-Arutz Sheva identified the Jewish man, who is wearing a large black kippah and tzitzit, as Yossi Wolfe, 31, a software engineer for The Wall Street Journal.
Wolfe told Arutz Sheva that the woman started berating him after another African-American woman with three small children boarded the train and could not find a seat, and was not offered one.
The woman began her rant by asking why no one was getting up for the young family, adding “If it was a Jewish family, y’all would have gotten up!” Wolfe then said to her, “Can we please not make this a racist thing?”
During the two-minute video clip filmed on a cellphone, she tells Wolfe that Judaism is not a race but a religion, so therefore her statement could not be racist.
“We are different. Understand that. You know why? Because your people treat my people different in our community,” the woman also shouted.
French, in his subsequent tweet, added: “I ask you all, is Anti-Semetism [sic] a real thing? Yes. Is being human a real thing? Yes. Is gentrification a real thing? Yes. Is prejudice a real thing? Yes. Let’s ask ourselves these tough questions before hitting send on a tweet. Be blessed y’all.”
The video, which was first posted on Thursday, has been viewed at least 156,000 times and has nearly 2,700 likes.
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