Crimes against Jewish people rose dramatically in New York City last month, new NYPD statistics show
Rabbi Josh Franklin, left, of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, and Scott Pitches from Montauk, clean anti-semitic graffiti at the Naturally Good Food Cafe on Main St. in Montauk, Oct. 30. Credit: Gordon M. Grant
Bias crimes targeting Jewish people in New York City dramatically increased in October, rising 214% over the same month a year ago, according to the latest crime statistics released Wednesday by the New York Police Department.
In October, there were 69 bias incidents against Jewish people, compared with 22 for the same month in 2022. While other ethnic and racial groups saw increases in incidents, those deemed by police to be prompted by antisemitism dwarfed the numbers for the other categories, the data showed.
NYPD officials weren’t able to provide a detailed breakdown Wednesday on the kinds of incidents involved, including whether they involved assaults, vandalism or slurs, all of which have been reported in recent weeks following the beginning of the fighting in the Middle East.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, of the New York Board of Rabbis, said he was dismayed by the latest police report but not surprised.
"Unfortunately, antisemitism is a sickness we have not cured," said Potasnik, adding that antisemitism is something society continues to see in various forms.
Pointing to recent incidents of antisemitism on college campuses, the rabbi said having an education is not insulation against antisemitism. "Remember, those who built the death camps were educated," Potasnik said, referring to the Holocaust.
In a news briefing earlier in October, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny noted that hate crimes overall in 2023 had been down but that since the fighting in Gaza there had been an uptick in those types of crimes.
Kenny added that a number of the antisemitic incidents had been clustered in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. The spike in antisemitic incidents drove an overall increase of 124% for all bias attacks in the city for October, according to police.
Additional bias crimes reported for October include those that targeted Muslims, which a year earlier had not been targeted, and seven involving persons subjected to attacks because of their sexual orientation, compared with three in the same year-ago period.
The latest NYPD data on bias crimes came as part of a release about monthly crime in the city for October.
The overall crime data showed a continuing drop in the number of homicides and shootings. For October, killings decreased 26.7% while shootings dropped by 8.1%. For all serious crimes, the decrease was 3% in October compared with the same period in 2022, although felony assaults were up nearly 7% and robberies up 3.5%, according to police.
However, transit crimes increased in October by 5.7% from the year-ago period, as well as incidents in public housing areas, which rose 11% year-over-year, police data showed.
Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.
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