Since July 21, 2024, Randy (Yisroel) Settenbrino, artist and developer, owner of The Historic Blue Moon Hotel and his family members and hotel staff, have had no peace. “We’ve been harassed online, our business has been harassed, and our front desk people have been harassed, to try to get them to quit, to frighten them,” Settenbrino said. These threats stem from his son Bram Settenbrino’s IDF service and photos that unfortunately went viral on social media.
Venomous attacks have been made via email and phone to the Settenbrino family and the hotel: on social media, including bad reviews; through the family’s website; protests and boycotts that have been arranged online and outside the hotel; and death threats made by Islamist supporters pouring in from all over the globe. Some of these threats have included extremely vulgar language and other perversions, insinuations of infanticide by Settenbrino, death threats against Bram, and fanatical antisemitism, and have come with photos of guns and knives.
“We’ve had calls at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning, in the middle of the night. It never ceased,” Settenbrino said. “Each time [with texts containing] pictures of the gun that says, ‘For the Zionist Cowards.’ They sent me a picture of a gun with a knife, and other pictures with knives. All kinds of horrific threats.”
But now, Settenbrino is pleased to report that the FBI has apprehended one of the stalkers. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an arrest warrant on November 21. In an 11-page document, a special agent with the FBI requested that the warrant be issued, ending with: “Wherefore, I respectfully request that a warrant be issued for the arrest of DONOVAN HALL, the defendant, and that he be arrested, imprisoned or bailed, as the case may be.”
In the wake of the arrest, Settenbrino said: “Since he has been arrested, this has been the first time that our daily lives work towards becoming whole. It will take a lot to make everything whole, to be on the mend. There’s been so many bizarre experiences. It made us feel like we were in the early stages of a regime where Jews are pursued with impunity, which is a very common historical theme.”
Listed charges are as follows: Count one is for threatening interstate communications on or about September 4, 2024. Count two is also for threatening interstate communications, on or about October 15, 2024; and count three, on or about August 2024 through on or about November 2024, is for cyberstalking.
Further, the document reads in part: “The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, the FBI and the NYPD are investigating a string of violent and antisemitic threats believed to have been made by defendant DONOVAN HALL. In particular, starting on or about August 2024, HALL began making threatening phone calls—many of which were antisemitic in nature—-to the owner of a hotel (“Victim-1”) located in New York, New York (the “Hotel”), to Victim-1’s family members, and to staff at the hotel. On or about October 2024, HALL escalated his threatening conduct by sending photographs of deadly weapons to Victim-1, along with threats to use those weapons to harm Victim-1 and his family.”
Another section of the document leading to the warrant to arrest Donovan Hall reads: “Between on or about August 8, 2024 and November 20, 2024, HALL, using the HALL phone, contacted the Hotel, its owners, its employees at least 971 times and made numerous threatening, intimidating and antisemitic statements during those communications.” Randy Settenbrino claims that the calls more accurately numbered 1,500. And he admits that despite the arrest of Hall, the concern remains that Hall still has to be arraigned and could be out on bail.
The Historic Blue Moon Hotel, a 22 room family-run hotel, is one of 150 in the Western Hemisphere chosen by National Geographic to visit. The hotel memorializes the age of mass Jewish immigration and is located in the historic Lower East Side on 100 Orchard Street, in Manhattan. A gallery within the hotel encapsulates personal effects detailing the lives of Jewish tenement dwellers and merchants that lived in the building. The Settenbrino family, from Passaic, New Jersey, have created a kosher cafe and restaurant offering klezmer and classical music for an iconic Jewish community that did not have a kosher eatery for five years. Settenbrino commented: “We don’t particularly have a Jewish clientele, but we have a kosher restaurant and we’re a hub for Jewish culture. My Tuesday night 7 p.m. weekly lecture at the hotel is entitled ‘Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews.’
“We encapsulate every aspect of Jewish life that once existed on the Lower East Side. “People should come to patronize The Historic Blue Moon Hotel, as we continue our mission here to memorialize the Jewish experience with food, music, art and all the things in hospitality.”
Susan R. Eisenstein is a longtime Jewish educator, passionate about creating special, innovative activities for her students. She is also passionate about writing about Jewish topics and about Israel. She has two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
