New York woman arrested after allegedly spitting on Jewish children

A woman was arrested and charged with hate crimes after allegedly spitting on Jewish children in Brooklyn, N.Y., according to authorities. 

Christina Darling, 21, approached an 8-year-old boy and his younger siblings last week and made antisemitic statements before spitting on them, the New York Police Department (NYPD) Hate Crime Task Force said on Twitter. Darling allegedly told the children that they should have been killed in the Holocaust during the incident, which took place outside the Kehal Tiferes Avrohom Ziditshov Orthodox synagogue, according to The Washington Post. 

“Hitler should have killed you all,” she reportedly said. “I’ll kill you and know where you live.” 

The 8-year-old’s father, Aryah Fried, told CBS New York that after Darling made the hateful comments, his son responded, saying he would save his little sister.

“I gotta teach him not to engage, but he engaged,” Fried said. “And she came running back at him, spat in his face and told him ‘We will kill you all, I know where you live, and we’ll make sure to get you all next time.'”

Darling was charged with three counts of aggravated harassment and acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17, both of which are classified as hate crimes, according to the NYPD’s task force. 

She could appear in court before a Brooklyn judge Friday evening, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office told NBC News. 

The news comes amid a rise in antisemitism nationwide. 

A gunman took hostages at a Texas synagogue last weekend, which President Biden described as an “act of terror” and left Jewish communities around the United States on a heightened level of alert.