Actress-writer Amber Tamblyn, the star of “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” films, found traveling in Brooklyn to be treacherous on a recent afternoon when she and her young daughter were nearly struck by a van while crossing the street.
Tamblyn, 34, wrote on Twitter that she was wheeling her daughter Marlow Alice Cross in a stroller and was crossing the street at the intersection of Atlantic and Washington avenues on March 4 when a van almost hit the stroller.
Tamblyn and her baby were not injured in the incident. Tamblyn charged that the driver rolled down his window, wagged his finger at her and told her to “watch where you’re going.”
Tamblyn described the driver as a Hasidic Jewish man.
Her description of the driver, as well as a subsequent statement she posted on Twitter charging that the March 4 incident was not the first time “a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know,” has landed Tamblyn in a stew of controversy.
Jewish leaders in Brooklyn, including Rabbi David Neiderman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, are denouncing the actress.
Calling Tamblyn’s tweet, “a shocking, hateful attack on all Hasidic men,” Neiderman condemned her remarks.
“We sympathize with anyone who experienced such an incident. However, Ms. Tamblyn draws an unfair and biased analogy,” Neiderman said in a statement.
“This would have been unacceptable against any other group. Blanket attacks against any group as a whole is a modern blood libel,” Niederman added.
Tamblyn defended herself on Twitter.
“I’ll say this once. To anyone suggesting that I’m anti-Semitic for identifying a man as Hasidic who hit my daughter’s stroller in a crosswalk with a car then rolled his window down, wagged his finger and told me ‘Watch where you’re going,” I will not be bullied or intimidated by you,” she tweeted.
In an earlier tweet, Tamblyn expressed her gratitude to people who had reached out to her to voice their concern.
“Thank you everyone for your kind words of support today. We are fine,” she wrote.
Tamblyn’s credits include “General Hospital,” “Joan of Arcadia,” for which she was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award, “The Grudge,” “The Ring,” “127 Hours,” “House” and “Two and a Half Men.”
She is also a published poet. One of her poetry collections, “Free Stallion,” won the Borders Book Choice Award for Breakout Writing.
