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Police are investigating the incident - which took place at the corner of Eltingville Boulevard and Barlow Avenue, not far from the Young Israel of Eltingville synagogue -- as a hate crime, an NYPD spokesman said Monday.

(Staten Island Advance/John Annese)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Hasidic Jewish man told police he was the victim of a bias attack in Eltingville Sunday morning, after a group of men in a car threw eggs and fast food drinks at him and yelled anti-Semitic slurs, according to cops.

Police are investigating the incident – which took place at the corner of Eltingville Boulevard and Barlow Avenue, not far from the Young Israel of Eltingville synagogue -- as a hate crime, an NYPD spokesman said Monday.

The incident happened at about 12:47 a.m., police said. The 20-year-old victim was walking by Eltingville Boulevard and Barlow Avenue when a gray four-door sedan drove past, then made a quick U-turn, the NYPD spokesman said.

The vehicle's passengers started throwing eggs and full drink cups from Wendy's, the NYPD spokesman said, and when the victim tried to walk away, the car drove alongside him, its occupants shouting anti-Semitic slurs.

The man called police at 2:30 a.m., and police searched the area, but couldn't find the vehicle, the NYPD spokesman said. The victim couldn't get the car's license plate.

A law enforcement source said the sedan had four occupants, all white males, but police couldn't provide specific descriptions to the Advance Monday.

Young Israel of Eltingville is located on Ridgewood Avenue, less than a block away from where the incident took place.

Sid Stadler, Young Israel's president and an Orthodox Jew, said he hadn't heard of Sunday's incident, but he and other members of the congregation have also been subjected to anti-Semitic slurs shouted by people driving past.

"They roll down the windows and start yelling, but we take it in stride," he said. "It's part of the fabric of society today, and it's happening more and more."

Stadler said that often, members of the Orthodox Jewish community don't talk about drive-by slurs.

"I encounter it at least once a month," he said, noting that the "drive-bys" often happen with more frequency after troubles in the economy, or current events like the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

"Staten Island as a whole is pretty good, but you have the tensions, what's going on in the world, and it comes out," he said.

Stadler added, "Four people in a car and one guy on the street is scary... This is an actual attack. The next time, who knows what they'll do."