By ANISHA BERMEJO
Anti-Semitic attacks in New York City increased by 275% this year according to recent New York Police Department crime statistics. With this alarming rise in hate crimes, City Councilwoman Julie Menin of Community District 5 (the Upper East Side of Manhattan) held a virtual town hall meeting with several other community leaders Feb. 8, to discuss what can be done to combat this frightening trend.
“I’m the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and my grandfather died in the Holocaust, and I feel very strongly about the need to tackle this,” Menin said.
Education was their primary concern, with many panelists stressing the importance of teaching and learning about the Holocaust to better understand the ongoing threats against Jewish communities. Ignorance surrounding Jewish history is partly to blame for many hate crimes, the panelists said.
Eric Donowitz, Council Member from CD 11 explained why Holocaust education should be top priority, “I was a public school teacher and I had students – who could not identify a swastika. Students who didn’t know what a Nazi was and didn’t have any real meaningful knowledge of the Holocaust,” he said.
Facing History and Ourselves, a non-profit organization which works with teachers and students in the schools, whose goal is to, “use lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate,” is working in that direction. Their lessons and workshops also focus on religious intolerance in general, as well as racism, genocide and mass violence and human rights. Having students analyze history strengthens their socio-emotional skills and helps them, according to Facing History, to “reflect on the choices they confront today and consider how they can make a difference.”
With NYC’s most recent attack involving a 15-year-old-boy assaulting a Hasidic man in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, there is a clear need for more education amongst the city’s youth.
Jonah Boyarin, the Jewish Community Liaison at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, also attended, explaining that the public needs education to push back against harmful conspiracy theories and misinformation. Boyarin stated, “Anti-Semitism teaches people to blame the problems–or their perceived problems–on Jews.”
Boyarin mentioned the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, in which a white nationalist killed 11 Jewish people in 2018. The shooter was well known for spouting conspiracy theories such as Jewish people controlling the government and bringing in immigrants to dilute the white race. Jewish communities being blamed for societal catastrophes goes back centuries. Some have blamed the community for everything from the communist revolution to the 2008 financial crisis, and in recent times, for the spread of COVID-19.
At the end of it all, one message was emphasized, “if hate can be taught, hate can be also unlearned,” as said by Adam Rosenberg of the Anti-Defamation League. It was also about the community helping their own, with the first step being to learn about the sufferings of your neighbors and stand by them during times of crisis.