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The Empire State of Jew Hate
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul delivering remarks on major legislation requiring colleges and universities in the state to strengthen hate crime policies. Photo: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City are multiplying. That’s the takeaway from last week’s release of the NYPD’s end-of-year crime report, showing that of the 641 hate crimes documented by the police in 2024, 54 percent targeted Jews.
That Jews comprise nearly 12 percent of New York City’s population, yet account for over half of the region’s hate crimes, suggests a failure on the part of politicians, including Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), to address anti-Jewish animus with the urgency and immediacy it warrants.
The report’s findings are attributed to a confluence of factors, which include weak leaders who are more inclined to defend criminals than protect Jews, and demographic shifts caused by a migration of students and citizens from countries that are hostile to Judeo-Christian interests.
As such, the statistics in the NYPD report should surprise no one — especially Jewish New Yorkers, whose encounters with antisemitism can occur at any time and on any avenue.
Whether it’s coming across a poster with a swastika scrawled across a Jewish hostage, or walking past a cohort of keffiyeh-clad agitators who threaten and shout vile hate at anyone perceived as Jewish or pro-Israel, it’s clear that antisemitism is going unchallenged in New York City.
Once thought to be minor conflagrations confined to the Orthodox enclaves of Crown Heights and Borough Park, a resistance to confronting antisemitism with meaningful action has activated a generation of dangerous and emboldened pro-terror supporters.
And no Jew is off-limits.
Over the past year, older Jews have been spit on while walking the streets, and other innocents have been harassed while riding the subway.
In October, the co-chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel, Todd Richman, was assaulted by an antisemitic mob, leaving him bloodied and bruised. Over the last year, up to thousands of morally bankrupt disruptors have found it perfectly acceptable to block NYC streets, shut down bridges, and hurl their genocidal screeds outside of hospitals treating cancer patients grappling with significant illnesses.
Mayor Adams has repeatedly condemned antisemitism and expressed concern over the violent tenor of the pro-terror rallies. He has joined Jewish New Yorkers to advocate for Israel, and has met with some of New York’s Jewish university students to discuss their experiences with campus Jew hate — something that the state’s Jewish senior Senator, Chuck Schumer, has yet to do.
But performative displays of outrage are no substitute for a strong police response, something that the Mayor remains reluctant to deploy. At a roundtable for Jewish reporters last month, The New York Post noted that Mayor Adams told one attendee that there’s a need “for real balance to allow peaceful protests and violent protests.”
When asked about what steps the city can take to tackle anti-Jewish hate, the Mayor responded, “we’re not going to be able to police our way out of this,” and that “you’re still going to have that hate after being arrested.”
This statement lies at the crux of why antisemitic incidents are rising in NYC, as well as in other Blue state bastions that resist using the law to deter antisemitic criminals.
Liberal lawmakers like Adams, who may retain genuine affection for his Jewish constituents, are wedded to upholding weak-kneed policies that demonstrate fealty to a progressive dogma rather than a commitment to protecting Jews.
Like Mayor Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul has talked tough before Jewish audiences at synagogues and ceremonies, yet takes next to no prescriptive measures to combat the Jew hatred in her state. (Although one should ask how allowing hate crimes against Jews to be tolerated is actually “progressive.”)
For months, Governor Hochul has distanced herself from her previous half-hearted support for reinstating an anti-masking law, a move implemented in Republican-led Nassau County over the summer. This law is important, because removing an attacker’s anonymity would be the first step in helping reduce anti-Jewish hate crimes.
The statistics cited in the NYPD’s report also raise an issue that discomfits the liberal disposition of many New Yorkers — who remark that the rise in antisemitic attacks would have been unthinkable 10 or 20 years ago. And they’re correct.
A combination of a marked surge in foreign student enrollment in the city’s universities, coupled with “asylum seekers” manipulating America’s loosening refugee asylum laws to gain entry into the country, is part of what’s driving the political and cultural transformation of NYC.
New York City is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States, and Mayor Adams has intimated that his administration has worked to divert antisemitic protests away from Jewish neighborhoods. Still, when NYC’s antisemitic violence is being stoked by influential agitators who are foreign born, it must be acknowledged that the changing demographics of the city have also contributed to the altering social order of NYC.
And while there are many American Muslims who are patriotic and upstanding contributors to our country, there still exists a notable number of Muslim Americans rooted in an anti-Jewish belief system. A Pew poll in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in Israel revealed that 49% of American Muslims agreed that “Hamas’s reasons for fighting Israel are valid.”
Jewish Americans must adapt to the evolving political and societal realities by lobbying our elected officials to do more to combat NYC’s disturbing spike in antisemitic assaults.
Jewish New Yorkers must cease behaving like unwanted stepchildren who are grateful and satiated with the slightest words of support from politicians whose policies simultaneously create conditions that render the city hostile for Jews. Democratic leaders in the state must stop their second-class treatment of Jewish Americans, whose many contributions to this country began in a city that is slowly turning its back on them.
Irit Tratt is a pro-Israel and American advocate residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt
The post The Empire State of Jew Hate first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.