NYPD Report: Anti-Semitic Crimes in November See 125% Increase as Concerns Grow
Edited by: Fern Sidman
A surge of anti-Jewish vitriol, spread by a world-famous rapper, an NBA star and other prominent people, is stoking fears that public figures are normalizing hate and ramping up the risk of violence in a country already experiencing a sharp increase in anti-Semitism, according to an AP report.
The Algemeiner reported on Monday that anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City during the month of November increased by 125 percent when compared to last year. The statistics were provided by the e New York City Police Department.
The NYPD recorded 45 anti-Semitic hate crimes in November 2022. In November 2021, it recorded 20. According to the data, Jewish New Yorkers were the most targeted group, accounting for 60 percent of all hate crimes that occurred, the Algemeiner reported.
There were several incidents of note in November, including a series of anti-Semitic and racist notes sent to several restaurants in the City Island neighborhood of the Bronx, the shooting of Hasidic Jews with a gel gun, and the uncovering of a plot to attack synagogues in Manhattan, according to the report on the Algemeiner.com web site.
Leaders of the Jewish community in the U.S. and extremism experts have been alarmed to see celebrities with massive followings spew anti-Semitic tropes in a way that has been taboo for decades, the AP reported. Some said it harkens back to a darker time in America when powerful people routinely spread conspiracy theories about Jews with impunity.
The AP reported that former President Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at Mar-a-Lago. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving was promoting an anti-Semitic film on social media that focused on the virulently anti-Jewish ideology of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement that was originally formed in Chicago.
More anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in New York than in any other state, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported in April. The Algemeiner reported that the organization noted that it tallied 416, which “accounted for an astounding 15 percent of the total reported anti-Semitic incidents across the country.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that anti-Semitic incidents have increased in the United States from 2020 to 2021, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The AP reported that in April, the Anti-Defamation League announced that its annual tally of anti-Semitic incidents reached a record high last year. The organization counted 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism in 2021, a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the ADL began tracking the events in 1979.
A Jewish man and his son were shot with BB guns on Sunday while standing outside a kosher supermarket in Staten Island, the Algemeiner reported.
Two suspects driving a black Ford Mustang grazed the son, who is 7-years-old, on the ear and impacted the father in the chest. According to CBS New York, the NYPD has said its investigators are still determining whether the assailants targeted the man and his son, who were wearing yarmulkes during the attack, because they are Jewish.
Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams attended the second annual “Mayors Summit Against Anti-Semitism,” hosted by the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement in Athens, Greece.
The Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM) is a global coalition engaging more than 600 partner organizations and nearly two million people from a diverse array of religious, political, and cultural backgrounds in the common mission of fighting the world’s oldest hatred.