For Our Sake, We MUST Support the Shomrim!!!

While New York City residents continue to justifiably bemoan the fact that the quality of life is in a constant state of rapid decline in the place they call home, tragically the scenario that we live with each day is expected to become much worse.

As the Jewish Voice has recently reported, the announcement from New York City Mayor Eric Adams concerning his intention of drastically reducing basic services to the tune of 15% or more, does not sit well with New Yorkers as these cuts translate into placing our public safety at serious risk but other services that we have come to depend on in our daily lives such as sanitation pick up and afternoon school programs for our children will also be adversely effected.

Yes, folks, as taxpaying citizens, it is our hard earned dollars that go to fund our police force, our fire department, our emergency services, our public transportation and our public schools. The tragic fact of the matter is that these services are no longer considered “top notch” but quite to the contrary, these services have gone from bad worse with no end in sight as they plummet in a rapid free fall.

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It does not take much to visualize just how horrific life in the Big Apple will be should such cuts take effect.

Today’s New York Police Department is being decimated by an exodus of officers as crime skyrockets to epidemiological proportions. Not only do New York City’s police officers face financial reductions but they are no longer motivated or incentivized to perform their duties with the same alacrity that they had in the past.  And let’s not forget that our justice system now practices a policy of leniency towards repeat offenders and career criminals. It goes without saying that we have the highly controversial bail reform measures to thank for that combined with the insidious pro-criminal rantings that are consistently spewed forth by the Soros sponsored Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.

During the 1970s financial crisis, crime increased when police officers were laid off; New Yorkers died when budget cuts increased City ambulances’ response time.  Recently, the NY Post reported that a trillion dollars’ worth of Wall Street businesses moved out of the City since the pandemic.  In the last three years, 500,000 high, and middle-class taxpayers have fled the city, while the socialist-controlled City Council wasted much of the federal COVID-19 funding on infective programs.  The Citizen Budget Commission forecasts that the fiscal year 2025 gap alone may exceed $13 billion if the City’s asylum seeker cost estimate proves accurate.  If the City of the nation falls into a recession, the deficit could easily double.  The Budget Commission reported that less than half of the potential $13.8 billion budget deficit in next year’s budget is attributable to the $6.1 billion that the City estimates services to migrants will cost next year.

According to a Siena College Poll released Tuesday, fifty-seven percent of those polled said that the quality of life in the Empire State is getting worse.  “A huge majority of Republicans, a large majority of independents, and a plurality of Democrats all say the quality of life in New York is getting worse,” said Siena College poster Steven Greenberg.  “In fact, a majority of virtually every demographic group – pluralities of Democrats, liberals, and New York City voters – say things are getting worse.

The Jewish community is proud that we do not send our kids to public school but rather, we send our children to yeshivot and Jewish day schools and we are willing to pay a fortune for their education as it is a solid investment in our future as a people. The city provides us with tap water, but we use bottled water. The municipal authorities provide us with public transportation, but we all drive to work. The city provides us with public hospitals, but we wouldn’t dare go there due to the subpar services they offer.

The sad reality is that what we receive in terms of services from the city is wholly inadequate in every respect and for our public safety concerns we have come to rely upon on the extraordinary performance and outstanding dedication of the Shomrim in our communities as our own personal safety patrol that is committed to protecting our property and our lives.

Shomrim was first established in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Crown Heights, Flatbush,  and Williamsburg in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Similar patrols were later established in such predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in Monsey, Deal, NJ, Baltimore, Miami, Waterbury, Connecticut, and London in the United Kingdom.

Shomrim volunteers, who are unpaid, are mostly members of the Jewish communities that they serve. It is interesting to note that around 70% of the victims they help are not from the Orthodox Jewish community, but rather just local residents from any race or religion.

Shomrim responds to a wide variety of crimes and cases, including reports of purse snatching, vandalism, car and bicycle thefts, and missing persons reports. Volunteers patrol the city streets in the overnight hours as a deterrent presence. When they are not on duty, they remain on call, and are often summoned to help other Shomrim groups or other Jewish community rescue organizations such as Hatzalah and Chaverim during large-scale search and rescue operations.

Shomrim has been effective in apprehending suspects involved in burglaries, robberies, assault, car thefts, vandalism, domestic violence, nuisance crimes, and the ever increasing rate of anti-Semitic attacks.

For these reasons and so much more, we owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the devoted volunteers of the Shomrim and we also owe them a tremendous amount of financial assistance in order that they may continue to protect us in ways that the city’s police force never could. It takes a hefty budget to operate such a highly professional and skilled public safety organization.

During these days of repentance, we are commanded to give tzedaka to help support those in need. In the case of the  Flatbush Shomrim, with our support for their superlative work, we also help ourselves and nothing takes precedence over saving the lives of our families. We urge you to donate generously to the  FlatbushbShomrim for our sake and that of our future generations. DONATE HERE