Protecting Jews in the Empire State

On a blustery late November Friday night, two men walked the Upper West Side looking for a synagogue. They carried a Glock and 30-round magazine as well as a hunting knife and Nazi swastika armband. According to a tweet by one of them, his intention was to “shoot up a synagogue and die.” Fortunately, their vile anti-Semitic plot was thwarted due to the heroic combined efforts of the NYPD, the FBI and MTA police.

While that was a success story, the danger to the Jewish community of New York is not over. According to a three-year analysis of the NYPD’s data conducted by my organization, the number of anti-Jewish incidents that occurred between January and August during 2020, 2021 and 2022 have increased from 83 in 2020 to 123 (up 48%) in 2021, to 188 (up another 53%) in 2022. In each year, Jews were the most targeted minority group in the city.

Moreover, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2021 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, out of the 88 physical assaults that occurred nationally versus Jews, 46 have happened in NYC.

Violent hate crimes do more harm to their victims than the same offenses done without bias motive; hate crimes incite fear in (and therefore indirectly victimize) other members of the targeted group. They also undermine the democratic principles and tenets of diversity and inclusion that are the foundation both of New York City and the United States.

Let me put it more plainly. Many visibly Jewish individuals are scared. They are scared that they will get slapped, beaten or worse simply while walking down the street to get home.

The organized Jewish community has taken steps in response. Since 2020, UJA-Federation of New York (UJA) has collectively invested millions of dollars in security, creating the Community Security Initiative, a joint initiative I oversee with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. It’s charged with providing proactive and reactive security support. From increasing physical security in buildings, to research on the “dark web,” these efforts work hand in hand with government to increase security.

As part of its two-prong approach, JCRC-NY also works intensively to identify common agendas and build bridges with other New York City communities, with the belief that learning and working together creates long-term trust that can reduce conflict and fights hate in all its forms.

Nevertheless, I believe that we are in a crisis, which is why we are calling on Albany and City Hall for help.

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While there are many theories and factors that may explain the “why” of this rise in extremism, intolerance and anti-Semitism nationally and globally, including COVID and the many conspiracies that link Jews and others to it or the extreme political environment, it is more productive to focus on what policies can do to improve security.

My team and I have been studying the problem for months, speaking with key stakeholders in law enforcement, the community and criminal justice system to better understand some of the parts of government that have a role but may not be functioning in ways that mitigate and address the problem.

One of our primary findings is that in spite of the positive efforts being made to combat hate by Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams, the current dispersed governmental infrastructure for responding to this wave of violent hate crimes — police, DA’s offices, courts, the mental bureaucracy — is not structured for collaboration.

From our analysis, the key contributing factors to a rise in hate crimes have been:

• The decrease in staffing at the NYPD, which has impacted the ability to sustain visible street deterrence against vulnerable communities;
• The criminal justice system’s reduced ability to remand dangerous individuals who have or attempted to commit a hate crime;
• A broken mental health system that does not have sufficient beds to institutionalize and treat those with psychological challenges, nor an ability to enforce adherence to post-release treatment programs. Mental health is associated with more than 30% of hate crimes in New York City.
• A juvenile justice system that needs both meaningful non-incarceration consequences and robust rehabilitation for those still young enough to learn tolerance. Since 2018, 26% of the perpetrators of hate crimes against Jews were teenagers.

Jews throughout history have been the canary in the coal mine — their treatment in society is often a harbinger of further intolerance and hatred to come. New York City has been a haven for Jewish life ever since Jacob Barsimson and the first significant group of Jewish immigrants came to New Amsterdam in August 1654 as refugees from Recife, Brazil.

Three hundred and sixty-eight years later, as the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, New York must do better to protect its Jews.

Silber, a former NYPD official, is the executive director of the Community Security Initiative, a joint program of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and UJA-Federation of New York.