While the Manhattan district attorney offers a light plea bargain to a man who confessed to attacking a Jew, a group plans to be outside the courthouse on Thursday morning seeking “Justice for Joey.”

Joseph Borgen was savagely beaten in May 2021 while wearing a yarmulke and on his way to a rally in support of Israel in New York City. The event came during a time when Gaza-based terrorist groups fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli communities.

One of his attackers, seen on video beating Borgen with a crutch, will decide during a hearing at New York Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday whether to accept a six-month sentence in a plea deal. A rally will take place outside, led by the End Jew Hatred movement. Three additional alleged attackers will have status hearings on Thursday as well.

“It’s high time that the Jewish community mobilizes because what’s happening is that you can beat up a Jew and there are just no consequences,” Brooke Goldstein, founder and executive director of the Lawfare Project and founder of the End Jew Hatred movement, told JNS. “Now you have the district attorney reaffirming that by giving this sweetheart deal, sending this guy who has no remorse out on the streets to continue to terrorize Jews.”

Borgen was surrounded by a gang of men near Times Square, and was subsequently punched, kicked, knocked to the ground and doused with pepper spray without provocation.

Wassem Awawdeh, 24, was caught on surveillance video beating Borgen with a metal crutch and was arrested near the scene. Borgen told police that Awawdeh called him a “dirty Jew” and said, F*** Israel,” and, “Hamas is going to kill all of you.”

Awawdeh told police that he “would do it again” if he could.

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