The NYPD’s chief chaplain was randomly attacked early Sunday while power walking on the Upper West Side, officials said.
Rabbi Alvin Kass was darting up Riverside Drive between West 83rd and West 84th streets when someone came up behind him and shoved him to the ground around 6:45 a.m.
The 80-year-old chaplain, who was dressed in a tracksuit at the time, told The Post on Monday that he was out for his usual morning stroll from his home on Riverside Boulevard up to Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights when he was attacked.
“I’m a walker; I like to go up to Grant’s Tomb and back in the mornings,” Kass said. “Someone hit me from behind and knocked me down.”
“They didn’t say a word, didn’t take anything. They just started running.”
Kass suffered a cut to the right side of his head. He was taken to New York Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Medical Center for treatment, police said.
“I had minor injuries,” Kass said. “Thank God nothing’s broken.”
Kass has served as the NYPD’s Jewish chaplain since 1966, and in 2002 was promoted to chief chaplain.
