ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF
Updated:

Police have charged Noora Shalash, a former employee of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), after footage depicting her harassing Jewish individuals and assaulting a man in Manhattan went viral, according to multiple media reports.

Shalash, of Lexington, Kentucky, has been charged with aggravated harassment, and a second-degree hate crime for the viral incident, the New York Post reported citing police.

“F*** the Jews, I love Jesus…I demand Jihad! I want ISIS to kill all of you! I am conspiring with Hamas, Palestinian Jihad and with ISIS, I am conspiring with them!” Shalash said in the viral video which also depicts her trying to kick a man and swatting at a phone recording her.

'THIS PAST week's co-naming of a street in New York City as Yad Cashem Way is a significant turn in events; in a city that never sleeps, this street sign stands high as a beacon of remembrance and a call to action for all humanity,' the writer states.
'THIS PAST week's co-naming of a street in New York City as Yad Cashem Way is a significant turn in events; in a city that never sleeps, this street sign stands high as a beacon of remembrance and a call to action for all humanity,' the writer states. (credit: Nir Arieli/Yad Vashem)

She is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on  Saturday. Police said she was taken for a mental evaluation following her detainment.

Seth Bell, one of Shalash’s alleged victims who filmed the attack, told the New York Post that the 39-year-old woman “was equating some random Jewish guy with what was going on in the Middle East, which is classic antisemitism.”

CAIR's response

While initial reports claimed that Shalash was a director for CAIR’s Kentucky branch, an organization that has faced a number of antisemitism accusations, the organization denied that she was currently working for them.

“This person has not worked with our CAIR-KY chapter in FIVE years,” CAIR National wrote on X/Twitter.  “She has no other role at our civil rights group today. We condemn and reject the antisemitic comments in the video.”