Combating Hate in New York City
Every New Yorker deserves to live in a safe city, free from harassment and violence, yet we’re going in the wrong direction at an alarming rate. Hate crime incidents between 2019 and 2024 grew by nearly 60%, across every major category, both in the number of hate crime complaints as well as arrests.
During the pandemic, anti-Asian hate crimes spiked from five incidents in 2019 to 140 in 2021. While they’ve since dropped by half, they’re still up more than 10 times since 2019. From 2018 to 2023, anti-Muslim hate crimes rose by 106%, anti-gay male hate crimes rose by 141%, and hate crimes against transgender New Yorkers rose by 140%. Hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers rose by 89% and account for the plurality – 42% – of hate crimes in the state. This is especially personal to me as the husband and father of four Jewish women.
More must be done across the board to fight back against rising levels of hate, especially the most common form against Jews. I will continue to speak out against the horrifying explosion of antisemitism we've seen across the city, particularly after October 7.
While I welcome discourse and debate and respect the right to protest, I have no tolerance for hate speech, harassment, violence or illegal actions like occupying/vandalizing buildings and public spaces. Those who engage in such actions should be swiftly punished.
I strongly endorse the work of the American Jewish Committee and the United States Conference of Mayors, which developed a comprehensive mayor's guide to combating antisemitism, and want to build on it.
This includes adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism and utilizing it in city government to better educate city officials, staff, and law enforcement. I strongly support this work and believe we must build on it to tackle other forms of hate crimes across the city. It’s an encouraging first step that this has been proposed legislatively at the state level.
As Mayor, I'd also direct more resources toward the NYC Commission on Human Rights to hire more Community Liaisons across the city and encourage greater collaboration between religious groups, community leadership and law enforcement for greater transparency and reporting measures around hate crimes.
Lastly, I will use my position as Mayor to push the United States Department of Homeland Security to beef up their Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) by 20% (an additional $50 million) to support target hardening and other physical security enhancements to nonprofit organizations at high risk of terrorist attack, particularly synagogues, mosques and other places of worship in NYC.