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NYC Mayor’s Office Holds Antisemitism Training at Police Academy, Over 100 Public Safety Professionals Attend
Public safety professionals attending an antisemitism training session organized by the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety on Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: Provided
Roughly 150 public safety professionals from across New York City on Monday attended a “first-of-its-kind” training on antisemitism hosted by Mayor Eric Adams’ Office to Combat Antisemitism and the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry at the Police Academy in Flushing, Queens.
Public safety officers and trainers from over a dozen city agencies attended the workshop, including the New York City Police Department (NYPD), school safety division, parks enforcement patrol, taxi and limousine commission police, and the departments of sanitation, health and mental hygiene, environmental protection, corrections, probation, and administration for children’s services.
The mayor’s office said the “high-level” event highlighted “the city’s commitment to equipping frontline personnel with the tools, context, and understanding to identify and respond to antisemitism in its modern forms.” Monday’s session opened with remarks from First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Daughtry, and Moshe Davis, executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
“This training is part of our city’s all-of-government approach to combat antisemitism head-on. We are not only responding to hate but working to understand where it’s coming from, who is fueling it, and how it’s evolving,” Davis said. “Education is a powerful tool in that fight. By equipping our public safety professionals with the knowledge and context they need, we’re ensuring they can confront antisemitism wherever it appears, whether it be in our parks, our schools, our streets, and beyond. This is how we protect the safety and civil rights of every Jewish New Yorker.”
After opening remarks, there were presentations led by two experts in the field of antisemitism. David Collins, a retired FBI special agent and senior research fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism, discussed continuously evolving antisemitic extremism in the United States, and the ties between propaganda, terrorism, and the increase in anti-Israel rhetoric. EJ Kimball, director of interfaith engagement at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, then talked to the public safety professionals about how to recognize and identify hate symbols and behaviors, antisemitism, and other forms of hate in their respective fields.
Monday’s event was the first of a series of workshops that the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism will organize for city employees in the next few months to ensure that they are receiving the training and understanding needed to confront antisemitism.
“Keeping New York City’s streets safe is the first step to fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate,” Adams said in a released statement. He noted that every officer, trainer, and city employee “must know how to recognize and respond” to antisemitism.
“That’s why we brought together New York City’s public safety leadership, to confront how antisemitism is evolving: how ancient hatred is being repackaged through conspiracy theories, political extremism, and propaganda masquerading as activism,” he explained. Adams added that his administration created the Office to Combat Antisemitism to lead with “clarity, coordination, and education, and it’s why we’re now training the people who keep this city safe.”
“From swastikas and inverted red triangles to threats against Jewish students or synagogues, we will not let hate gain ground,” he said, referring to the fact that inverted red triangles have become a symbol of support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“In the face of rising global antisemitism, New York is setting a national standard. Here, we fight hate with action. We will fight for the city we love,” the mayor added
Adams’ interagency task force to combat antisemitism held its inaugural meeting in July. A month earlier, New York City adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.