The installation of 100 cameras throughout Brooklyn to monitor the streets in response to a spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes is welcome but “things are far from good,” a Jewish official stated.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio stated Friday that the Police Department will install 100 new cameras in Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park. The first 30 cameras will be operational by March.
Vice-Chairman of the World Zionist Organization Yaakov Haguel applauded New York City’s decision to install 100 security cameras in Brooklyn but demanded further action.
“Despite this important step, things are far from good. Cameras may produce a deterrent but are far from providing a sense of security,” he stated Sunday.
“The fight against growing anti-Semitism in the US should begin in education, in an intensification of punishments and through the pursuit of legal justice,” he stated.
He further noted that anti-Semitism “begins with incitement in the network, in public discourse, in factual distortions. It seeps into religious houses and anti-Semitic texts of religious leaders. It finds a convenient place with politicians and student organizations on campus.”
He called for an intensification of the punishments imposed on offenders and said that the public discourse on the fight against anti-Semitism in the US should “be put at the top of the public agenda.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) anti-Semitism watchdog last week released its latest figures on recent anti-Semitic incidents in New York City and New York State showing that in the five-week period from December 1, 2019, through January 6, 2020, there have been 43 confirmed anti-Semitic incidents statewide, up from 30 incidents during the same five-week period a year ago.
The incidents included 11 reported assaults against Jews, 22 incidents of anti-Jewish harassment, and 10 acts of anti-Semitic vandalism.
This data represents a more than 40 percent increase year-over-year and includes one of the most violent anti-Semitic attacks in New York State in recent memory, the December 28 Chanukah stabbing at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, which left five people wounded, including one critically.