A Queens man already indicted for killing a 71-year-old Jewish woman in a high-speed crash now faces separate hate crime charges for twice destroying property outside a kosher bagel shop that displayed Israeli flags.
The Queens District Attorney's office charged Dawood Faisal with hate crimes on July 31 after prosecutors say he targeted Bagels & Co., a Jewish-owned shop in Queens, on two separate evenings in May. Ten days after the second vandalism incident, Faisal allegedly drove more than 75 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone, ran two red lights, and slammed into two cars, the second of which struck two pedestrians in a crosswalk. Cara Trager, 71, a longtime journalist and well-known leader in the Queens Jewish community, suffered fatal injuries. Her husband, Michael Trager, was also hurt.
The manslaughter indictment came in late July. The hate crime charges followed the next day. Together, Faisal faces more than 22 years in prison if convicted on both sets of charges, more than 15 years on the manslaughter case alone, and up to seven additional years on the hate crime counts.
The timeline matters. On the evening of May 15, Faisal allegedly knocked over nine metal plant stands outside Bagels & Co. that displayed Israeli flags, then threw dirt at the storefront. Eight days later, in the middle of the night on May 23, he allegedly returned and escalated, pushing over 11 plant stands, dumping plants and dirt onto the sidewalk, and ripping plants from their pots.
Two days after that second incident, on the evening of May 25, Faisal allegedly tore through a majority-Jewish section of Queens at more than double the speed limit. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz stated that Faisal attempted to flee the scene before bystanders chased him down. The Washington Free Beacon reported that the crash area, Hollis Hills, is described as a majority-Jewish section of Queens.
Michael Trager, who lost his wife in the crash, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he believed Faisal was "looking to do damage in a heavily Jewish area." That claim has not been established as a legal finding, but the proximity of the vandalism to the crash, and the nature of the property Faisal allegedly targeted, is difficult to dismiss as coincidence.
The pattern fits a broader surge. NYPD data showed antisemitic hate crimes in New York City jumped 46 percent in May compared with the three months prior. The city recorded 41 antisemitic hate crimes that month, roughly one every 18 hours. Hate crimes directed against Jews accounted for 60 percent of all hate crimes in the city during that period. Antisemitic violence is not confined to New York; attacks in 2025 killed 20 people outside Israel, the deadliest toll in three decades.
Cara Trager was 71 years old. She was described as a longtime journalist, an outspoken supporter of Israel, and a leader in the Queens Jewish community. She was walking in a crosswalk with her husband when the second car struck them both. Her death was not an abstraction. It was a specific loss, in a specific neighborhood, at the hands of a man prosecutors say had already shown hostility toward Jewish-owned property days earlier.
The case arrives at a moment when Jewish New Yorkers face threats from multiple directions. A Bronx woman was recently charged with hate crime assault after an antisemitic attack on the subway. The incidents are not isolated. They form a pattern that city leaders have been slow to confront, and, critics argue, have at times made worse.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has spent months threatening to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Netanyahu came to New York. Mamdani released a video statement accusing the prime minister of being "the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people." At a rally before the June primaries, he described AIPAC donors as "monsters."
The day after Mamdani's video, a man stabbed two people on Manhattan's Upper West Side after yelling "allahu akbar." One of the stabbings occurred near a synagogue.
Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, drew a direct line between the mayor's language and the climate facing Jewish residents. Goldstein said Mamdani's "political grandstanding" has "real-world consequences for the Jews of New York." He went further in a public statement:
"We want the mayor to stop demonizing the only Jewish state, using the most vilifying rhetoric, focused solely on the only Jewish state and the supporters of it. Using language like 'monstrous,' using the most horrible, difficult language that inflames, that terrorizes, that causes people to do terrible things."
Goldstein's statement did not accuse Mamdani of ordering violence. It accused him of creating conditions in which violence becomes more likely, a distinction that matters legally but carries real weight when the hate crime numbers are climbing month over month.
The political backdrop sharpens the concern. In the June 23 New York primaries, three candidates endorsed by Mamdani won Democratic nominations in their congressional districts. Each carried a record of hostility toward Israel that went well beyond policy disagreement.
Claire Valdez, who defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the 7th district, called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas almost immediately after the October 7, 2023, terror attack. She also allegedly liked an X post on October 7 that described the massacres as "unthinkable bravery." The anti-Israel activism on college campuses has extended into federal conspiracy charges against activists at the University of Michigan for targeting Jews and officials.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the 13th district, attended a rally in Times Square on October 8, 2023, one day after the attack. She also helped organize the anti-Israel encampment on Columbia University's campus alongside an organizer who said "Zionists don't deserve to live" and fantasized about "murdering Zionists."
Brad Lander defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the 10th district after accusing Israel of committing a genocide and calling to block U.S. aid to the country. Goldman himself had been banned from a Brooklyn coffee shop over his pro-Israel views. Mamdani's response to that ban was described as lukewarm. Threats against Jewish-owned businesses are not limited to New York, gunfire recently struck two Jewish-owned bagel shops in Toronto in suspected hate-motivated attacks.
None of these candidates ordered anyone to vandalize a bagel shop or drive 75 mph through a residential neighborhood. But the political environment they represent, one in which calling the October 7 massacres "unthinkable bravery" is compatible with winning a Democratic primary, does not exist in a vacuum. Language that treats Israel's supporters as moral villains reaches people who act on it. Prosecutors say Dawood Faisal was one of them.
Significant gaps remain. Prosecutors have not publicly stated whether the manslaughter indictment carries its own hate crime enhancement or whether the vandalism charges are a separate proceeding. It is unclear whether Faisal has entered a plea on either set of charges, or whether he is currently in custody. The specific statutes underlying the hate crime charges have not been identified in public filings reported so far. The threat landscape extends well beyond New York's borders, French authorities recently opened a terror probe after weapons were found near a Paris synagogue.
The legal connection between the May vandalism and the May 25 crash also remains unresolved. Were the two sets of acts part of a single pattern of escalation, or are they being treated as legally distinct? The answer could shape both the charges and the sentence Faisal ultimately faces.
When a man vandalizes a Jewish-owned shop twice in eight days, then kills a Jewish woman in the same neighborhood two days later, the community does not need a prosecutor to connect the dots. It needs leaders who refuse to give hatred a permission structure, and right now, New York's Jewish residents are not getting that from City Hall.
