Photo Credit: Demetrius Freeman/nyc.gov/photo
The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, with First Lady of NYC Chirlayne McCray (first row, center) March 31, 2016.

The grant money for AAANY will also be used to “hire a full-time bilingual Licensed Master Social Worker to sit at AAANY to provide one-on-one counseling to clients,” and AANY will also “build a robust mental health referral system with LFHC,” presumably to refer clients to the few AAANY employees fluent in Arabic and trained in mental health care. That’s a tiny number of providers; how could a referral system be necessary? If it isn’t a tiny number, then why is so much money being given to create more?

But here’s the really surprising news: Arabic speakers are the smallest fraction of New York City non-English speakers, according to the City’s own information. More than 50 percent of Spanish-speaking New Yorkers are not proficient in English. The next highest group of non-English proficient speakers are Chinese, at 16.5 percent. The next largest is Russian, at 6.3 percent, Korean at 2.6 percent, Bengali at 2.1 percent and Polish and Yiddish tied for 1.6 percent.

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But just 1.5 percent of Arab New Yorkers, according to New York City’s own demographic information, are non-English proficient speakers. And of the top 20 countries of birth for the foreign born of New York City according to the latest information available, not one country has Arabic as its native language.

So why the decision to funnel $500,000 into this tiny population? Undoubtedly it would be ideal if everyone with mental health problems could be served by practitioners who are fluent in the person in distress’s native language, but whether this expenditure, for this tiny population, and in the way it is structured, is the best use of resources all seem to be legitimate questions.

And further, so far as the record currently appears, none of the directors of the other organizations who are receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Mayor’s Fund are calling elected officials “Zionist trolls” or encouraging small children to consider themselves heroes by imitating terrorists or are speaking at conferences of Hamas affiliates.

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Lori Lowenthal Marcus is a contributor to the JewishPress.com. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: [email protected]