The NYPD will increase its watch over synagogues around the city and add officers in Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg, in response to the string of anti-Semitic attacks before and during Chanukah, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Friday.
The mayor’s announcement followed the latest anti-Semitic incident around 12:40 AM Friday, Tiffany Harris, of Brooklyn, slapped three religious Jewish women in the head and shouted anti-Semitic expletives at them. Harris was arrested nearby around 1:20 AM and is facing charges of assault and harassment as a hate crime.
On Thursday, Police arrested a homeless woman, Ayana Logan, 42, in Gravesend, Brooklyn, and charged her with a hate crime after she yelled anti-Semitic slurs and hit a religious Jewish woman, 34, in the face with a packed grocery bag. The victim’s 3-year-old child was with her during the attack.
“I feel pained that in this society, a place that is supposed to be of respect for everybody, a season when we’re supposed to be respecting everybody, we see hate rearing its very ugly head. We will not accept it,” de Blasio said during a visit to Crown Heights on Friday, at a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community there.
There have been reports of eight anti-Semitic attacks in New York City since Dec. 13. The attacks coincided with the Dec. 10 anti-Semitic attack on a kosher supermarket in Jersey City that killed two Chassidim.
On Monday, Steven Jorge, 28, a resident of Miami, was charged with hate-crime assault after cursing, punching and kicking a religious Jewish man, 65, in midtown Manhattan. The victim was treated for cuts and bruises.
Governor Andrew Cuomo instructed a state hate crimes task force to help police investigate the attack on 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, calling it “a horrific and cowardly act of anti-Semitism.” He added: “It’s even more despicable that it occurred over the holidays.”
Well, goyim have been known to beat up Jews over the holidays in different places and other times…
The New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force is also investigating an attack by a “group of people” on two religious Jewish boys, ages 6 and 7, as they were getting off an elevator in a Williamsburg apartment building Monday night. One of the boys was hit, and the attackers then ran off.
Early Tuesday, a religious Jewish man ran away from a group of men who were yelling anti-Semitic slurs at him on a Crown Heights street. They threw a bottle after him. That same Tuesday, a religious Jewish man was surrounded by black men who punched him.
Hate doesn’t have a home in our city.
In light of recent anti-Semitic attacks, the NYPD will increase their presence in Boro Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg.
Anyone who terrorizes our Jewish community WILL face justice.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor)
On Friday, Mayor de Blasio tweeted: “Hate doesn’t have a home in our city. In light of recent anti-Semitic attacks, the NYPD will increase their presence in Boro Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg. Anyone who terrorizes our Jewish community WILL face justice.”
To which Sophie Ellman-Golan, undoubtedly a member of the tribe, responded eloquently: “Your answer to Jews being terrorized is to send in more police to terrorize Black and Brown people. This is what pitting vulnerable communities against each other looks like.”
Now, that’s a much-needed response: we call on both young Blacks and elderly Jews to stop cursing, punching and kicking each other on the streets of New York. Why can’t we all just get along?