Zalman and Bayla, whose son was almost grabbed in the middle of the day in Crown Heights, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about the attempt to snatch their children.
''My husband was bringing the kids to the Shabbat meal in the afternoon," Bayla described. "A guy showed up from nowhere and tried to grab my son."
"The whole thing took like two seconds," Zalman added. "I turned around to him, I guess I punched him, and he just left the kid. The only thing I was thinking that he tried to kidnap the kid, and we know how it could end if he had suceeded."
As it was Shabbat, Bayla had no way of knowing what had happened until her family returned hom. "When my kids came back, they told me 'Mommy, someone tried to grab me!' and I was petrified. The minute Shabbat was over I called Shomrim and the police, and they took care of it very fast. We are very thankful for the NYPD and for the Shomrim."
She described the process of catching the suspect. ''The police came to our house to asked us questions, and right away told us that they arrested him. That was very good, because my kids were very scared."
She doesn't think that her child is suffering trauma from the attempt. "He thought that it was funny at the beginning, but he didn't want to go to sleep last night, and this morning he told all the boys in school that he was almost kidnapped. Everything was finished so quickly that he wasn't traumatized. He saw the guy very well and was able to describe him in detail. He is going to be going through therapy provided by his school, and hopefully will realize everything is in God's hands."
Bayla addressed the question of whether it was an antisemitic attack. "Last night he asked me is because if he if he was attacked because he was Jewish. I told him no. he was not attacked because he was Jewish, just because the man was not okay, and hopefully will go to jail for a long time."
"I know that he attacked few people on same day. The police don't think that it was a hate crime. I don't want to think that it was a hate crime, because with everything going on in Israel and around the world, I don't want my son to feel that is a hate crime. The minute the kids start to feel that it was a hate crime, they'll be scared to go anywhere. I want them to feel like the guy just wasn't normal, that's it.''
The couple told about the shock of the video going viral. "I got over 500 messages yesterday. Somebody called me saying there's already a million views in the middle of the day. I have family living in Israel, and they called in the middle of the night asking if our son was all right. "Zalman had the right reaction,'' they said.
"These people are crazy,'' Bayla concluded. ''They live with a hate we can never know."