In February, 56 hate crimes were reported by police in the city. This is an increase of 11 incidents in February 2021. Police recorded 15 of these crimes in January. This rise in antisemitic crime is due to rising hate incidents against various groups in New York. These include increases in anti Asian and anti Black attacks, as well crimes targeting people based on their sexual orientation.
Eric Dinowitz is the chair of New York City Council’s Jewish Caucus. He said that the crimes have a broader impact than their immediate victims.
“When antisemitic hate crime are on the increase, the whole Jewish community feels it. Dinowitz stated that the entire Jewish community feels the pain. They share in the suffering and feel the anxiety. “That’s how hate crimes work, and we see it with our Asian American brothers, as hate crime are also on the rise in that area.”
Dinowitz stated that he will propose legislation to expand the information that the NYPD must publish each month. This includes the results of hate crimes, and bias arrests.
CBS New York reported that a man wearing traditional Hasidic clothing was attacked in the face as he walked down a Brooklyn street on February 4. Another incident occurred on February 11. A Brooklyn man claimed that a person jumped out of a vehicle and asked the driver for directions before reaching forward to grab the man’s yarmulke.
Farah Louis (a member of City Council) denounced the incident. His district is the exact location of the attack.
Louis stated in a statement that the following week, “The sporadic, all-too-frequent attacks on our Jewish neighbors is indefensible, with dire consequences for their family and our community as whole,”
According to FBI statistics, the total number of hate crimes in America has increased by one every year since 2014. According to the Anti-Defamation League (an advocacy group that tracks antisemitism), more than half of hate crimes in America are based on religion . 683 of 1,244 religious-based crimes that the FBI logged in 2020 were antisemitic.
