Nechemya Weberman (Gregory P. Mango)
AMBUSHED: Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg (right) — a critic of Nechemya Weberman (left) describes being attacked yesterday. (
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An anti-sex-abuse activist who was a daily fixture at the trial of child molester Nechemya Weberman was splashed with bleach in his face yesterday on a Brooklyn street.
Crusading Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, 62, was ambushed as he walked down Roebling Street across from Schnitzler’s Famous Fish market at around noon, he and witnesses told The Post.
“He comes up to me and he taps me on the shoulder,” the still-shaken Rosenberg recounted after being treated at Woodhull Hospital for burns to the eyes.
“He walked up hard to me. He looks me in the face. I saw him holding a glass. I thought it was coffee or something, and he throws it in my face.”
Rosenberg runs a hot line and blog for sex-abuse victims, and was a regular at the just-ended trial of powerful Hasidic leader Weberman.
Rosenberg claims the attack was in retaliation for his staunch support of Weberman’s now-18-year-old victim.
On Monday — as Weberman was convicted of molesting the Brooklyn girl starting when she was 12 — Rosenberg posted on his blog an accusation that a rabbi had abused young boys.
After Weberman’s conviction, he tweeted: “Baruch Hashem!! [Blessed is God!!] “Chazer [pig] Weberman Is Arrested After All [59] Charges Was Totally True! Rabunim & Chazerim [rabbis & pigs] Are All The Same Garbage.”
“Two days later [actually, one], this is what happens,” Rosenberg said.
Police had not charged anyone late yesterday in the alleged assault, though identified a suspect they planned to question.
Primo Santiago, who manages a liquor store near the scene of the attack, said, “It happened so fast. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw [Rosenberg] walking down the street, and the other guy ran from the fish store and threw the bleach. He didn’t say anything”
Police sources said the 37-year-old suspect agreed to turn himself in this afternoon.
Additional reporting by Natasha Velez