NYC Mayor's Office updates journalists for "Hate Crimes Awareness Month"

It was bad news for Jews as the NYC Mayor's Office updated journalists during "Hate Crimes Awareness Month"

By Henry Levy

The Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes (OPHC), the Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, the Community Affairs Unit (CAU), and the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media held a virtual roundtable on October 9, 2025 for New York's ethnic and community media for “Hate Crimes Awareness Month.”

The panel discussed new student-focused initiatives on inspiring change, including: Youth Ambassador Leadership Program, which will empower young leaders to speak out against bias and discrimination, promote inclusion, and help make New York City schools and communities safer.

Multi-borough HeARTwork Against Hate traveling student art exhibit, celebrating 26 contest winners, between the ages of 9 and 18, for using art to take a stand against hate, bias, and discrimination.

Community-driven solutions by hosting multicultural conversations and engaging with the city’s religious, ethnic, and cultural leaders.

The participants included: Vijah Ramjattan, Executive Director, OPHC, Erica Ware, Deputy Executive Director, OPHC, Gilford Monrose, Executive Director, Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, Moshe Davis, Executive Director, Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and Mohamed Amen, Muslim Senior Advisor, CAU.

Vijah Ramjattan said that the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, established in 2019, was the first of its kind in the country. The population of NYC is 8,478,000. The top five religions are Christianity, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhism. The most recent yearly records for 2024 list by percentage the top ten hate crimes committed against the following groups:

Anti-Jewish 53%, Anti-Gay (males) 11%, Anti-Muslim 7%, Anti-Black 6%, Anti-Asain 5%, Anti-other ethnicities 5%, Anti-Trans 2%, Anti-Female 2%,, Anti-Hispanic 2%, and Anti-Catholic 2%..

It was pointed out that not all hate crimes are reported and this commission encourages bystanders to become upstanders by video-taping incidents as they occur and aid the victims in reporting the incidents to the police.

Moshe Davis mentioned that city employees are currently undergoing training to understand anti-Semitism. He said, "Right now there is so much hate and so much anti-Semitism against Jewish people coming fro all different streams of the political spectrum." He added that educating people about the history of the Jewish people in the diaspora, in Israel and New York City and how they contributed so much to our society is needed.

Mohammed Amen said that while hate can be learned, it can also be unlearned and that if someone hates one group, they can hate others as well. He stated the importance of victims to report crimes. And, he urged the media to hold the 60+ partner groups of this commission, that receive funding, to hold them accountable for how the money is spent.

How is a hate crime defined?

Vijah said that it is a crime motivated in whole or part by somebody's race, ethnicity, gender or age, but it must be established first that a crime happened.

Vijah also mentioned that 18% of youths know there are resources in schools if they are being bullied and 18% know they can get into trouble (if they hurt others).

Well, if that means that 82% of students have no knowledge of resources for them use or think they cannot get into trouble for bullying, or worse, that is alarming.

Vijah explained the commission is not a punitive system and that we can not punish our way through this or jail our way through this. We have to educate. It would seem that there may be some student, parents, victims of crimes and regular New Yorkers that may take exception to that point of view.

Rima Qasim, General Manager of Al Hawadeth Newspaper wanted to implement a study to explore anti-Palestinian racism, saying that her people were made to be ashamed of their heritage which leads to dehumanizing Palestinians. She mentioned a couple of examples where Palestinians were attacked and one murdered not for participating in a protest but just for wearing a keffiyeh, their national garb. There appears to be some similarities with Jewish victims of hate, so neither side is immune to hate. Members of Asian and other groups expressed similar concerns.

Hank Levy, publisher of the Jewish Post made a statement toward the end of the roundtable. Here are his comments: "Since 2019 none of the city's programs have been working regarding hate against the Jewish community. You can't say we have to educate our children without delineating how we do that. The Holocaust must be taught in all public schools. That was the ultimate hate crime.

October 7th was another unbelievable hate crime against Israel and the Jewish people.

On October 8th, the whole script flipped. There was no discussion about what caused Israel to react, it was just based on the reaction and what resulted was tremendous hatred against Israel, and against Jews. You see it every day all around the world.

We must teach current events in schools and it must be done without a bias, especially hate incidents. As soon as students can understand that, they can see patterns to identify every other hate crime that comes before them. Once students can understand what is happening, day by day, week by week, they won't make the mistakes of just chanting things that they do not understand. 'Free Palestine', 'From the River to the Sea' - they have to understand background and they have to understand history.

So, I take the Board of Education, New York City schools, and the teachers to task. They are not doing their jobs and I think this has to be a focus of this commission, to make sure that they do their jobs and educate our kids."