NYPD investigates a hate crime attack on a Jewish man on the Upper East Side

NEW YORK – A Jewish man says he was harassed and randomly beaten on the Upper East Side. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.

Jewish man spat on and harassed outside Manhattan market

Stephen Zeffren had just left Ouri's Market on Third Avenue near 67th Street Wednesday afternoon when he said a strange man began harassing him.

“Someone just comes up to me, spits in my face and says, 'You dirty Jew,'” Zeffren said in an exclusive interview with CBS News New York's Lori Bordonaro.

Zeffren wore his yarmulke back then.

“He said, 'Oh, do you want to chase me?' And I just kept looking down and trying to mind my own business,” he said.

The father of three from Teaneck, New Jersey, didn't expect what happened next.

“Before I know it, the idiot hits me in the face,” Zeffren said.

“I am proud of who I am”

Zeffren says his ear was bleeding, but he's lucky his injuries weren't worse.

The man who hit him fled north on Third Avenue. Police are investigating his attack as a hate crime.

“It is very sad that the rise in anti-Semitism is now so widespread,” Zeffren said.

“It just makes me so sad because it shouldn't happen,” said Tata Maglakeledza, manager of Ouri's Market.

From now on he will be more vigilant, says Zeffren, but he will not live in fear.

“I won’t be afraid to come to town. I will never be afraid. I’m proud of who I am,” he said.