An oil analyst with Stamford-based Freepoint Commodities who was fired from his job after he trended on social media in a video showing him engaging in antisemitic harassment of a Jewish man while covering up posters that called attention to Israeli hostages being held by Hamas has issued a formal apology for his actions.
As reported by the Business Journal, the video was shot on the evening of Nov. 9 at the corner of West 68th St. and Riverside Blvd. in Manhattan, where posters showing the Israeli hostage were plastered to a lamppost. In the video, a man is covering the posters with homemade signs that include “Israel is an Apartheid State and Commits Genocide” and “Occupiers Face Consequences.” When the man shooting the video asks the poster hanger to identify himself, he raised an extended middle finger to the camera while a woman abruptly appears and made scatological remarks while holding her cell phone up to shoot a video of the confrontation. The man shooting the video identified himself as a Jewish American and the couple told him to “go back to your country” before engaging in more foul language that included accusations that all Israelis are rapists and the Jewish man practiced bestiality.
Shortly after the video went on X (formerly Twitter) and began to go viral, the couple in the video were identified by conservative journalist Andy Ngo as “husband and wife Kurush Mistry and Shailja Gupta.” Mistry was identified as an oil analyst for Freepoint Commodities, where he has been employed for 14 years, and Gupta was identified as founder and owner of Box Office Pocket, which creates merchandise for Bollywood films. While Gupta claimed “Palestine is my country,” both she and Mistry were identified by media analyst Sonam Mahajan as Indian nationals.
Freepoint Commodities promptly fired Mistry after his identity was confirmed. Today, Mistry and Gupta broke their silence to issue a formal apology for their actions.
“After taking time to contemplate and reflect on our recent actions, we want to send our sincerest apologies to the Jewish gentleman we yelled at, gestured to, and said unkind things to, as well as apologize to the global Jewish community for our recent actions in NYC,” said the couple in a statement posted online by Reputation Doctor LLC, a public relations consultancy. “Our behavior was simply unacceptable and we are ashamed of our actions and words. We hope to have the opportunity in the near future to speak to the gentleman personally and apologize directly to him.”
Mistry and Gupta claimed they never supported Hamas and their actions marked “our first time engaging in civic protest and our goal was to emphasize the plight of Palestinian men, women and children, who are also dying and suffering in Gaza. Our way of doing so was misguided and thoughtless. For example, our badly-worded poster was construed to support violence, and we apologize profusely for that. We fully acknowledge the pain of the Jewish people in the U.S., in Israel and globally, and we regret that our actions added to that pain.”
The couple added they have received “many death threats” since the video emerged, adding they have “learned a valuable lesson about the need to love all as brothers and sisters instead of highlighting disagreements and causing more pain. We unequivocally denounce antisemitism, violence, and terrorism in every form. Again, we apologize from the bottom of our hearts to all those we have offended and caused pain to, especially the global Jewish community, our fellow Americans, and our fellow Indians. We hope that by our future actions and words we will slowly earn back your trust in our good intentions for all humanity, and that you can hopefully see that we are more than our worst actions and mistakes.”
