More than three months after his wife was mowed down in a shocking hit-and-run crash, a Jewish Queens man is searching for answers — and wants the accused killer charged with an antisemitic hate crime.

Michael Trager, 70, and his 71-year-old wife, Cara, both members of the Hollis Hills Jewish community, were walking to a neighborhood restaurant after watching a movie on Memorial Day — when tragedy struck.

A motorist going 75 mph in a 35 mph zone rammed into two other vehicles, sending one of the cars into the couple and mortally wounding Cara, who died days later.

“Physically I’m lucky to be alive,” the victim’s distraught widower said in a recent sit-down interview. “Mentally, honestly, I had a really wonderful marriage and it’s very hard to lose somebody that you really loved.

“Am I not dead?” Trager told The Post. “It makes you think and for the first time in 47 years, I’m alone and that’s not the way I wanted things to go out for her, for sure. 
Because you don’t get the chance to say goodbye.

“And the fact that she died in this way is unbelievable,” he said. “Because you couldn’t be any more pro-Jewish than she was.”

Trager said that detail is relevant because accused killer driver Dawood Faisal, 22, who is now being held on Rikers Island on manslaughter and other charges, had allegedly vandalized a Jewish bagel shop in the neighborhood twice in the weeks before the fatal crash.

The grieving widower believes those alleged crimes and the fact that it was a known Jewish neighborhood, raise troubling questions about the suspect’s motive.

“What I am alleging was that he was in a Jewish area, a very heavy Jewish,” he said. “And though he did not necessarily try to kill Cara Trager or injure Michael Trager or kill Michael Trager for that matter, it was a good likelihood that if he was gonna do that activity, it’s going to be more than likely hurt a Jewish person.”

The Tragers spent May 25 watching the 1946 war romance film “The Best Years Of Our Lives” at home, then decided to go out for a bite to eat, with Cara suggesting they walk to the eatery.

They were strolling on Union Parkway when they were both hit, police said.

According to a report by National Review, Faisal had been doing doughnuts on the intersection of Francis Lewis Boulevard in his 2013 Toyota Prius when he ran a red light and hit the car that struck the Tragers.

“The next thing  I know she’s dead and I’m hit by the same car,” Trager said.

Police said Faisal tried to run but was held by bystanders until cops arrived and busted him.

On July 31, cops hit Faisal with additional charges of criminal mischief for allegedly trashing Bagels & Co., a Jewish-owned shop in Queens that displayed Israeli flags and banners — including one May 23 incident, just two days before the crash.

Trager said he had an “excellent” meeting with Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, adding that, “She seemed very sympathetic to what I was saying.”

But he said he also wants to sit down with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been chided for anti-Israeli statements in the past, to urge him to speak out against antisemitism.

“I want to see that he cares … I want to see that my fellow Jews can live safely and peacefully in a city,” Trager said.

“I want him to be the mayor of all the people, whether he agrees with them or not. I want everyone to feel that they matter.”

Trager said he understands it would be difficult to investigate a hate crime motive and potentially bring such charges in his wife’s slaying. 


“I’m sad. Very sad,” he told The Post. “It’s not helpful to be angry, ’cause I can’t change things the way they are.

“But I can try to attempt to make sure that these incidents are few and far between,” he said, “and we have a mayor and other government leaders that are doing their best to make sure in their best efforts that these incidents don’t happen again.”

— Additional reporting by Joe Marino