This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated December 8, 2023
New York City is, and always has been, one of, if not the most, diverse places in all of the United States. It is a city where over 200 languages are spoken by immigrant and second-generation New Yorkers from every part of the world, and where every religion on the globe can be found being practiced within the five boroughs.
It is, therefore, no surprise that horrors experienced thousands of miles away in a war-torn part of the world lead to deep-rooted concerns and outrage here in our city, amongst our population. Whether it is people who have personal connections to that part of the world or New Yorkers with empathy for those affected, it is to be expected that passions will run high.
The horrific terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7 and the ensuing hostage standoff, followed by the prolonged, deadly bombardment of Gaza for nearly two months, has caused a level of destruction that is hard to fathom. Over 1,200 were killed in Israel on October 7 and more than 200 taken hostage, with children among both of those figures. Since Israel’s war in Gaza began, an estimated 15,000 Gazans have been killed, and with half of their population being under the age of 18, it is, sadly, unsurprising that about 6,000 of those fatalities are children.
It is well-known how complex the decades-long situation between Israel and Palestine is. Referring to it as a “situation” does not do it justice, as the seemingly intractable matter has had real-life, life-and-death consequences on residents of the region for generations and we have just witnessed a two-month period that has led to more Israeli and Palestinian deaths than previous periods of many years that had been considered horribly deadly.
We cannot solve the problem over there from here, but, as New Yorkers always do, passionate city residents will make their voices heard, protest, and take action to let those who are in office know how they feel about the violence occurring in that part of the world and how they feel our government should exert its influence on the world stage. That is a huge part of what makes our country and our democracy great.
What is not great is when some individuals allow these passions and fierce debates to manifest into acts of hate perpetrated against others. We have seen many of these instances over the past few weeks. People who are Muslim or have been assumed to be subjected to apparent bias attacks. Jewish New Yorkers targeted in hate crimes simply because they are Jewish. I fervently believe that New York and its people are the best of us here in America, but these acts of hate are most definitely the worst of us.
NYPD statistics show that during the third quarter of 2023, there were 38 bias attacks in which the motivation was anti-Jewish hate. This is the latest quarter for which data is available and it only covers the first three weeks that followed October 7, yet those 38 bias attacks that targeted Jewish New Yorkers made up 36 percent of all bias attacks during that time and they represented a 72 percent increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes compared to the same quarter last year.
Anti-Jewish hate has been the motivation of more bias attacks in New York City than any other category for years, but statistics show that it has gotten worse during the latter part of 2023. It is unacceptable and abhorrent that Jewish New Yorkers are being targeted in this way.
Some of the increase in hate we have seen is not actually physical violence, but instead hate speech. Governor Hochul recently addressed how online hate speech against Jewish communities and against Muslim communities has each seen four-fold increases recently, as she announced that state funding would be directed toward combating it.
Muslim New Yorkers who lived here post-9/11 have drawn comparisons to the anti-Muslim rhetoric they experienced then to what they are seeing now. In October, according to police, a man sat next to a 16-year-old girl who was riding the 5 train to school and told her, “You’re a terrorist, you don’t belong here,” then yanked on her hijab. A week earlier, the NYPD reported that a man randomly punched a woman in the face on a 7 train, and when she asked why he had done that, he simply said it was because “you are Jewish.”
We cannot, nor should we, expect that people’s views about what is occurring in Israel and Gaza will become less passionate. We must, however, all be as passionate in denouncing any acts of hate against any New Yorker.
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