Bus stops in Canarsie, a neighborhood in the southeastern part of Brooklyn, have been defaced with Nazi swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti “right before Shabbos,” and there have been objects thrown at synagogues and bomb scares recently at a Modern Orthodox school in Flatbush and a Satmar school in Williamsburg, according to Rabbi Avrohom Hecht, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Canarsie.
The rabbi has been “accosted verbally,” typically “on Friday night, coming back from shul,” he said.
That’s why he thinks that it is “possible” that the New York City Police Department is right when it says that major crimes—like murder and rape—are down 6.6% in the first three quarters of the year, while antisemitic hate crimes have surged, including 182% in Zohran Mamdani’s first month as mayor.
Jew-hatred “is very focused,” according to the rabbi.
“It’s only focused on the Jewish community, and it’s mainly focused on visibly Jewish people that have tzitzit out or a yarmulke or a hat or a beard,” he told JNS.
He thinks that people tend to overlook the psychological impact of rising anti-Jewish hate crimes, which have consistently accounted for more than half of religion-based hate crimes in New York City this year.
“Especially Holocaust survivors and frail elderly are very concerned about the situation,” Hecht told JNS. “They’re fearful to walk outside, and children, I think, also are affected by it.”
“Besides the physical aspects, I think that we have to also be concerned about the psychological aspects,” he said. “It’s not anti-Zionism. It’s pure antisemitism, because they don’t ask you if you’re from Israel or you’re a Zionist.”
“They’re focusing purely on the appearance of the people and making quick judgments,” he said. “It’s pure antisemitism. That’s what it is.”
It’s “fine” that crime is down overall, according to the rabbi, but “the people who are doing this feel that they are in the right, that they want to address the so-called alleged genocide.”
“They feel that it’s all right to scream at young children. It’s a right to deface things and to throw things on shuls,” he told JNS. “They view it as a moral obligation to address a so-called genocide, which really does not exist.”
Experts told JNS that Jews are feeling unsafe despite the NYPD’s reported progress on major crimes.
“The disproportionate number of anti-Jewish incidents continues to be a critical concern for the Jewish community,” Scott Richman, New York and New Jersey regional director at the Anti-Defamation League, told JNS.
Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of 245 of 463 confirmed hate crimes in the city during the first nine months of 2026, or 53%, according to NYPD data released on Oct. 6. That was up 1.2% from the 242 confirmed anti-Jewish hate crimes during the same period last year.
Meanwhile, major crime in the Big Apple, including murders and robberies, fell 9.4% in the third quarter of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. Through September, major crime was down 6.6% from the first nine months of 2025, according to the NYPD.
“Even with a lower crime rate, it is hard to feel safe and secure when Jews see police cars stationed in front of their synagogues and schools, and support for terrorist groups on signs in their streets,” Richman told JNS.
The NYPD, under Commissioner Jessica Tisch, “deserves enormous credit for the significant reductions in murders, shootings and other serious crimes across New York City,” according to Mitchell Silber, CEO of the Community Security Initiative, a partnership of the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
The department’s success in reducing major crime offers a model that should be used to address hate crimes and help Jews feel safer, according to Silber.
“Those improvements benefit every New Yorker, including the Jewish community,” he said. “Since Oct. 7, the NYPD has done an extraordinary job managing protests, protecting Jewish institutions and maintaining public order under extremely challenging circumstances.”
“But there is an important distinction between a city becoming safer overall and Jewish New Yorkers feeling safer as Jews,” he told JNS.
“When Jews, who represent approximately 11 to 12% of New York City’s population, continue to be targeted in more than 50% of all reported hate crimes, it creates a very different perception of personal security,” he said.
“A Jewish New Yorker may be statistically less likely to become the victim of a violent crime generally, while still feeling increasingly vulnerable because of their Jewish identity,” Silber said.
Hate crimes, especially anti-Jewish ones, fall into a separate category from overall crimes, according to Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, senior rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“These statistics highlight how different antisemitic crimes are,” he told JNS. “What people don’t get about antisemitic crimes is that the perpetrators imagine themselves as ‘idealists.’”
“Most crimes are driven by desperation, opportunity or rivalry. Antisemitic crimes are driven by ideology,” Steinmetz said. “The perpetrators believe that by attacking Jews, they are making the world a better place.”
The discrepancy between declining overall crime and rising antisemitic hate crimes stems from anti-Zionism, according to the rabbi.
“The constant propaganda against Israel has created a permission structure for every antisemite. People murder Jews and justify it with the bizarre belief that it will help Palestinian children,” Steinmetz said. “If the city wants to be serious about antisemitism, it needs to recognize how anti-Zionism enables much of this violence.”
Ezra Friedlander, CEO of an eponymous firm that advises Jewish groups on government and public affairs, told JNS that declining crime rates are a positive development for New York Jews, even if antisemitic hate crimes rise.
“If crime, generally speaking, is going down, of course it’s good for our community,” he said. “We are part-and-parcel of the city, and we’re part of the population here, so if crime overall is going down, then of course it’s positive.”
Friedlander, who is visibly Jewish in the street, told JNS that he feels safe in the Big Apple.
“I’m going to ride a subway soon. God willing, I’m heading down to Washington,” he said. “I’ll be riding on the ‘D’ train to Penn Station.”
Still, he looks over his shoulder when entering and leaving subway stations.
“I always look behind my back,” he told JNS. “That’s been going on since Oct. 7. Whenever I leave the subway, I’m always careful when I walk down the steps.”
The rise in antisemitic hate crimes is “not surprising” given the attention on Israel, according to Friedlander.
“It’s very simple to reconcile that, because if there’s an outsized attention on Jews and Israel, then the hate crime will be geared towards Jews, because that’s what’s in the news,” he told JNS. “But overall, it’s very possible that the crime statistics have gone down, which is good.”
“We all benefit from that,” he said.