Hate Crimes Spike Against Jews, Muslims: NYPD

posted on: Sep 11, 2014

The Big Apple is feeling the heat of recent Middle East conflicts, with hate crimes against Jews and Muslims up sharply this summer.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the city jumped 35 percent as of Sept. 9, compared to 2013. There were 63 incidents in 2013 and 85 this year. Violent anti-Semitic assaults more than doubled, from three to eight.

And there were 15 incidents of anti-Muslim hate crime, compared with seven last year. Violent anti-Muslim assaults shot up from just one last year to six this year.

Crimes included an Upper East Side couple attacked by a gang with Palestinian flags and a prominent Muslim activist getting threatened with beheading in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Hate crimes jumped 15% citywide in 2014, from 173 last year to 203 incidents.

“They are up in two communities — the Muslim community and the Jewish community,” Robert Boyce, the NYPD Chief of Detectives, told a City Council hearing this week, adding that “actions that are happening globally, are affecting us here as well”.

Since July, the Middle East has seen Hamas rockets fired at Israel, Israel’s return airstrikes on Gaza and the beheading of two American journalists by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

Prior to July, an average of eight anti-Semitic hate crimes occurred per month in New York City. Now, there’s 18 monthly.

Twelve of the 15 anti-Muslim hate crimes this year occurred in July and August.

Hate crime statistics are usually only released to the public annually, making them difficult to monitor, according to one legislator.

“We’re driving blind to some extent,” said Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), head of the City Council’s Jewish Caucus. “Finally getting data 18 months after the fact doesn’t help the public or policy makers”.

NY Post
Amber Jamieson