January 3, 2020
The New Year is barely underway and already an apparent hate crime has grabbed our attention. Hundreds of people attended a Town Hall Meeting to Address the Rise of Anti-Semitic Violence organized by Rep. Adriano Espaillat at Mount Sinai Jewish Center on Bennett Avenue and West 187 Street on Thursday evening. The meeting was called following the brutal machete attack last Saturday night in Monsey, NY, just the latest in an alarming spate of anti-Semitic attacks in our area and around the country.
Also on hand at the town hall were NYPD personnel, elected State and local officials, and religious leaders. NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan explained that the Department’s goal is that people feel safe in their neighborhoods. Attorney General Letitia Tish James shared an anecdote about taking a walk with a Jewish friend on a sweltering hot day in BK and asking him why was he wearing a hat on top of his yarmulke. It isn’t safe, he said, to walk around openly displaying religious attire.
Deborah Lauter, Executive Director, NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes posed the question how do you fight hate and anti-Semitism? Three ways, she explained: Law Enforcement, Community Relations, and Education. Quoting Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel she said the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.
Several speakers noted with dismay the widespread ignorance of the Holocaust among young people, with a shockingly low percentage of students able to name even a single WWII Nazi death camp.
NYC Jewish Community Relations Council Associate Executive Director David Pollock said attacks on Jews in Brooklyn have largely fallen into two main categories: psychiatric issues and ‘stupid kids doing stupid things.’ Council Member Mark Levine reminded everyone that ‘in the darkest hour it was DR that opened its arms to Jewish refugees’ fleeing Hitler’s Europe. That connection still lives on in our neighborhood today, Levine observed. State Assembly Member Al Taylor urged people to ‘take it to the streets’ as his Bronx community did to counter a wave of homicides there. Some members of the Guardian Angels were in the audience, sporting their distinctive red berets.
Newly appointed NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea joined Rep. Espaillat in answering questions submitted by people in the audience. The back wall of the auditorium was lined with television news cameras and reporters.
A veteran Hatzolah paramedic who responded to the Monsey attack told the Gazette, ‘it was…bad.’ Speculating on the attacker’s mental state, which has been suggested as a possible explanation for his violent behavior, he wondered why would someone buy bleach to clean up blood if they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong?
There will be a Solidarity March on Sunday beginning at 11 AM in Foley Square and heading across the bridge to Cadman Plaza. More information here.
