New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan

The majority of all hate crimes in New York City over the first three months of this year have targeted Jews, according to new data released by the New York Police Department (NYPD).

The striking figures, announced last week by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, will likely fuel criticism of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took office on Jan. 1 and has been accused of promoting antisemitism and not doing enough to denounce violence against Jews.

“Confirmed hate crimes increased nearly 12 percent this quarter citywide. We continue to see that the vast majority of our hate crimes are antisemitic in nature,” Tisch said on Thursday in an appearance at 1 Police Plaza with Mamdani to discuss the overall crime data for the year.

“In fact, in the first quarter of 2026, more than half of all confirmed hate crimes, or 55 percent, were antisemitic, despite Jews only making up approximately 10 percent of the population of New York City,” the police commissioner added.

Explaining that the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force “determines whether an incident meets the legal standard for hate crime under New York state law,” Tisch announced that “as of today, and for the first time, our monthly hate crime data will include two clear, accurate sets of numbers. Reported hate crimes, those flagged for investigation by the task force and confirmed hate crimes as determined by the task force.”

Tisch called this approach “the gold standard for reporting on hate crimes, and that is what we are going to do going forward. This will ensure that the public has an accurate and timely and more robust view than ever of hate crime activity in New York City.”

Tisch’s comments came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City. In January, for example, such crimes skyrocketed by 182 percent during Mamdani’s first month in office compared to the same period last year.

Jews were also targeted in the majority (54 percent) of all hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024, according to data issued by the NYPD. A recent report released in December by the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism noted that figure rose to a staggering 62 percent in the first quarter of 2025.

Under Mamdani, however, Jewish New Yorkers have expressed particular alarm about their safety.

A far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, Mamdani has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state; supported boycotts of all Israeli-tied entities; and failed to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been used to call for violence against Jews and Israelis around the world.

Last week, the mayor said that New York was welcoming to people of all backgrounds.

“This is a city where everyone who lives here should know that they belong across these five boroughs. There is no person of any faith that should ever be made to feel as if this is not their home, that this is not a place where they can be safe,” he said. “And frankly, we are looking to build a city where the threshold is not simply safety. We want this to be a city where New Yorkers are cherished, where they are celebrated. And we know that that is the case for many. And still, there is so much more work to be done to ensure that is the case for all.”

Hours after taking office, Mamdani revoked multiple executive orders enacted by his predecessor to combat antisemitism.

Among the most controversial actions was Mamdani’s decision to undo New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, a framework widely used by governments and law enforcement around the world to identify contemporary antisemitic behavior. The definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations.

In February, a group of New York City politicians and civic leaders sued Mamdani, charging that members of his administration had stonewalled Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests related to his choice to cancel the executive order embracing the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a move supported by the mayor’s inner core of radical, anti-Zionist activists.

A reporter at 1 Police Plaza asked about the nature of New York City’s hate crimes and if they had grown more violent. Mamdani’s response notably avoided mentioning the Jewish community by name, despite the NYPD’s focus specifically on antisemitic attacks.

“So, the hate crimes that we are seeing are really, like, very across the board. It could be something — an act of violence. It could be drawing a symbol on a wall, like, for example, a swastika,” Tisch added. “So, I don’t want to characterize them in that way. What I can tell you is that the NYPD has released this month, the gold standard for data about hate crimes. We’ve done this in consultation with experts in the field. And that is data about reported crimes and data about confirmed crimes.”

Concluding the questions, Tisch said, “And so now everyone has access to both pieces of information, and that will continue into the future. I want to make sure that we are incredibly transparent about data because data is power, and I also don’t want to continue or perpetuate the practice of releasing bad data that doesn’t help draw meaningful conclusions.”

Despite Tisch’s comments, not everyone supports the city’s so-called “gold standard” change to hate crime data reporting, which some critics argue is conveniently timed to sanitize the administration’s record on rising antisemitism.

“We’re all watching the manufacturing of propaganda in real time,” Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side, told the New York Post. “They’ll change the method of counting antisemitic crimes and literally six months later the mayor’s office will claim that antisemitism has dropped.”

Elisha Wiesel, son of the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, shared Steinmetz’s suspicions, telling the Post that “I think there should be a loud outcry telling them to change it back.”

Former NYPD Detective Michael Alcazar, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, called the much-lauded data style an example of “textbook fudging the numbers,” adding, “It’s going to look like they’re combating hate crimes, but they’re not being transparent.”

Alcazar said that if the NYPD really sought transparency, “then they should show the number of complaints they actually receive and what the investigations yielded.”

Flash photo of Rima Hassan, European deputy and member of La France Insoumise (LFI), speaking alongside her lawyer Vincent Brengarth during a press conference following a hearing at the regional headquarters of the Paris judiciary police in Paris, France, on April 3, 2026. Photo: REUTERS

French far-left Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan is set to face trial in July over an incendiary post on X glorifying a 1970s terrorist attack on an Israeli airport – the latest controversy in her long history of antisemitic, hateful, and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Last week, French authorities briefly detained Hassan after suspecting that her March 26 post — later deleted — could be seen as supporting terrorism.

Now, Hassan has been summoned to appear before the Paris criminal court on July 7 to be tried “on charges of advocating terrorism committed online.”

In a post on X, the French lawmaker referenced the 1972 Japanese Red Army attack at Lod airport in Tel Aviv, which left 26 people dead, seemingly seeking to justify the terrorists’ deadly actions.

In the name of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, three Japanese terrorists arrived on an Air France flight from Rome with weapons hidden in violin cases, carrying out one of the deadliest attacks on Israeli soil in the 1970s.

In her post, Hassan quoted Kozo Okamoto, the sole surviving attacker, who defended the massacre by citing “the oppression of people in the Palestinian territories.”

Under French law, online “terrorism apology” carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison and fines reaching €100,000.

According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, Hassan is also under investigation in six other cases for potential hate speech, while 16 additional inquiries have been closed.

During a press conference, Hassan denounced the proceedings as “genuine judicial and political harassment” targeting her political views.

Born in Syria, the 33-year-old lawmaker has been a vocal pro-Palestinian activist and a fierce critic of Israel since her election to the European Parliament in 2024 for the French far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party.

Last year, Hassan was detained by Israeli authorities after security forces intercepted a Gaza-bound aid boat attempting to break the blockade.

She and three other French nationals aboard the vessel were subsequently expelled from Israel.

TEL AVIV, Israel — It was a strange sight, even for wartime Israel: A line of police horses descended into the vast public bomb shelter beneath Tel Aviv’s Habima Square — hooves clattering against the concrete as officers led them to safety.

While the horses got a police escort, just a few feet away, 17 antiwar demonstrators were stuck on a police bus, pleading to be let off before the incoming barrage of Iranian missiles reached the city.

They had been detained as part of the ongoing crackdown on Israelis protesting against the war with Iran, carried out in the name of wartime public safety.

This round of arrests took place on Saturday night. “Our phones began buzzing with the pre-siren warning,” recalled Alon-Lee Green, co-director of the Jewish-Palestinian coexistence group Standing Together and now one of the leaders of a burgeoning antiwar movement. “We kept asking them to let us go down to the shelter. They refused, even though this is completely against the law. They told us it was our problem because we chose to come to the protest.”

When the siren sounded — signaling 90 seconds to take cover — the argument escalated. Onlookers tried to intervene, urging police to allow the detainees into the shelter. Instead the driver took off for a nearby residential building. The activists, some still in handcuffs, were rushed into the lobby and ordered to lie on the floor. “This was not a protected space. We were under a bunch of glass windows,” Green recounted. “If there had been a direct hit … they put our lives at risk in a very serious way.”

In the weeks leading up to Israel and the United States’ joint strikes on Iran, support for full-scale war among Israelis was high, with most people convinced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dire warning of the immediate and existential threat posed by Iran and his promise to eliminate it “for generations” were both truths. As the war began, and Israelis found themselves rushing into bomb shelters, support remained widespread.

But as the fighting has continued to drag on, the antiwar movement has followed a sharp growth trajectory: from a small gathering of far-left activists outnumbered by the journalists reporting on them to multi-city demonstrations drawing more than 1,000 participants each week. The numbers are still modest compared to the tens of thousands who filled Israel’s streets weekly during the judicial overhaul protests and the hostage demonstrations after Oct. 7, but a significant jump given how popular the war was at its outset.

The rise of the protest movement coincides with a shift in public opinion. Support for the war, which began above 80%, has dropped into the high 60s in recent weeks — still a clear majority, but a meaningful decline for a conflict that initially drew near-unanimous backing. One month in, war fatigue has begun to set in. In addition to the growing death and injury toll and financial loss, Israelis are sleep-deprived, desperate for school to resume, and frustrated that the airport is still not operating at full capacity. They are also watching as the government slashes the state budget.

Organizers say they are encouraged by the rapid growth, even as they navigate the pitfalls of coalition-building. But for now, the movement faces a more immediate challenge: as crowds grow, so too does the force being used by uniformed and plainclothes Israeli police officers to disperse them.

Arrests, forcible removal of demonstrators and confiscation of equipment have now become regular occurrences. According to police, these are legitimate methods for dispersing protests, which they say violate Home Front Command directives restricting large gatherings during wartime. But with beaches and malls around the country packed with people, and Haredi communities holding massive funerals, weddings and holiday celebrations, critics have accused far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of using those same restrictions as a pretext to silence dissent.

That debate has now moved from the streets to the courtroom. Just as Saturday’s protest was getting underway, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that blanket restrictions used to shut down demonstrations did not sufficiently account for the basic right to protest, which the court president stated exists even during wartime. The court ordered the state to raise the cap on demonstrations from 150 to at least 600 people, including at Habima Square.

The ruling came in response to a petition filed the day before by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and activist Itamar Greenberg, following weeks of aggressive police dispersals. The court also raised concerns about selective enforcement, noting that similar restrictions were not being applied to other large gatherings.

By Saturday night, the decision was already being tested. As hundreds of demonstrators gathered once again at Habima Square, part of coordinated protests that also drew crowds in Haifa and Jerusalem, organizers said they were operating within the court’s guidelines. Police disagreed. Citing security concerns and Home Front Command restrictions, officers moved quickly and forcefully to disperse the crowd, confiscating amplification equipment and signs and arresting 17 people, including Green.

“But we learned afterwards that the police had begged Home Front Command to give the order that the protest was illegal, and they refused,” he said. “After 30 minutes, the police just decided to act on their own command and begin arresting people.”

IDF officials later confirmed to Haaretz that dispersing the demonstration had not been approved by the Home Front Command, saying the decision was made by police alone. The High Court is expected to revisit the issue this week, even as Justice Minister Yariv Levin has called on the government to consider defying any ruling that expands protest rights during wartime.

For Green, the past few weeks reflect a deeper societal shift. “What we’re seeing is the legitimization of political violence,” he said. “It starts with words — calling people traitors for opposing the war or supporting peace — and it slowly becomes something more.” In recent months, a spate of right-wing provocateurs have begun harassing and intimidating journalists, politicians, and protesters with whom they disagree. Prominent leaders, including Green, have also been targeted at their homes.

He added: “When the public sees that it’s becoming dangerous to speak out, to organize, to protest — that violence is an acceptable way to silence a political camp — it changes the entire public space.”

Both Green and Greenberg stress that the antiwar movement is not the first, nor the primary, target of such force. “By no means did this start with our movement,” Greenberg noted. “It begins with the Palestinians. They bear the brunt of police brutality. But that’s how fascism works — people remain silent, and eventually it comes for them.”

Green agrees. “It’s a slow but powerful process of stripping legitimacy from an entire political camp,” he said, “and giving permission to act against it with violence.”

While that threat has surely kept individuals at home, the movement as a whole continues to expand. It now includes veterans of the antigovernment movement, first-time demonstrators, and public figures such as Hadash-Ta’al political party lawmakers Ofer Cassif and Ayman Odeh — even as many prominent opposition figures remain absent.

For Greenberg, the growth is both intentional and complicated. “We not only expected it,” he said. “We were trying to make it happen as soon as possible.”

“As someone who identifies as a radical anti-Zionist, I understand the limits of my political power. We are a small group. But we are part of this society, and we can still create a movement of resistance to this war.”

That has required letting go of control. “We started this, but now we are part of something bigger,” he said. “There are people at the protests whose views I totally disagree with … but right now we have one mutual goal, to stop this war. I cannot afford to be picky.”

Green suggests that tension is central to the movement’s future. “This is where we see Standing Together’s role — to help build as wide a coalition as possible,” he said, describing efforts to bring together more than 50 groups around a broadly shared platform. “Anti-war, anti-government, anti-abandonment, pro-life. Whoever can agree to this can be in the tent.”

It is a fragile coalition. “Right now, we still feel that our specific voice is being heard loudly and clearly,” he said. “But what happens when it grows to 10,000 people and suddenly we are in the minority?”

“It becomes about finding a balance,” Greenberg continued, “Continuing to show up at largest protests and representing the anti-occupation bloc but also making sure that we are developing separate ways to express our specific beliefs.”

For Green, however, the moment feels larger than any one single cause or agenda.

“I think we’re facing a moment where all the different fronts are uniting,” he said. “People are starting to understand that whether you are coming from a humanitarian viewpoint or from a solidarity viewpoint or anti-government or even self-interest, it’s all connected to one overarching question: Are we going to find a way to live here in peace or are we are going to be stuck in this constant state of war, forever fighting, stealing, assassinating, running to shelters, our children missing school?”

As the protests continue to grow — even amid efforts to suppress them — organizers believe they have opened a space that did not exist just weeks ago.

“We have the opportunity,” Green said, “to present a different way.”

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