NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – New York City has felt an increase in antisemitic hate since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the NYPD said.
The Mayor’s Jewish Advisory Council hosted a Hate Crimes Summit at the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights on Tuesday, where a panel of public safety and political leaders spoke on hate crimes across New York City.
Hate crimes jumped by 7% since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and 30 of the 51 hate crimes reported last week were against Jewish people, police said.
This spike is congruent with the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.
“We are seeing a lot of people getting slapped, getting pushed,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “The majority of the 30 crimes that we saw that were anti-Jewish, they stemmed from graffiti, criminal mischief, aggravated harassment. Basically almost bordering on free speech.”
Bias attacks have manifested in overt physical violence, like when a man punched a woman in the face at Grand Central subway station last week, telling her “you are Jewish.”
There have been 196 bias attacks against Jewish people in 2023, compared to 208 for the same period in 2022, Kenny said, indicating a reversal of the initial decrease.
Fifteen hate crimes have been reported in Brooklyn since the war began, and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez commented on his office’s duty to fight hate, in the form of “both prevention and prosecution.”
“They have a dual mission, to prosecute hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law, but also they have an obligation, a responsibility, to try to work with community partners” Gonzalez said.