Queens Jewish leaders consider community safety after Jersey City attack

Hundreds of mourners gathered Williamsburg for the funeral of Moshe Deutsch. Eagle photo by Paul Frangipane.

By Victoria Merlino

An attack on a Jersey City kosher market that authorities say was fueled, at least in part, by anti-Semitism has Queens Jewish community leaders questioning what more can be done to protect their friends and neighbors.

The violence in Jersey City last Tuesday left six dead, including two civilians who had ties to the Brooklyn Orthodox community. The attack on the Jewish shop was the latest incidence of violence amid a nationwide increase in anti-Semitic crimes. New York City, home to more Jews than anywhere else in the country, has seen a major uptick in hate crimes across the city this year, with a surge in anti-Semitic crimes in particular.

Queens has had a number of high profile anti-Semitic incidents this year, including anti-Semitic flyers dumped at a subway station in Ridgewood, hate messages scrawled on the walls and in the sand of Breezy Point and Belle Harbor, swastikas drawn in a Rego Park schoolyard and an attack on a teenager in Forest Hills.

“You need people of good conscience — Jew and Gentile alike — to stand together,” said Howard Pollack, a member of the advisory board of the Forest Hills Jewish Center.

Pollack told the Eagle that many organizations and congregations are hiring armed guards and implementing additional security procedures at community spaces and synagogues across the city. “It’s an active conversation going on right now in Jewish institutions citywide,” he said. “It’s unfortunate but people need to begin those types of conversations.”

“I hope that one day my children will never have to have these types of conversations,” he continued, adding that the city had taken steps to protect and build confidence among Jewish residents. “I hope that people don’t become immune to this sort of violence,” he said.

In response to the Jersey City violence, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau would create a new unit to investigate domestic terrorism and hate groups to combat anti-Semitic violence in New York City. The NYPD also increased deployments to protect areas within Jewish communities, such as synagogues.

“An attack on the Jewish community is an attack on all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement. “There is a growing crisis of violent anti-Semitism across the country — and it is one our City cannot ignore.”

Queens Councilmember Karen Koslowitz — who herself received an anti-Semitic letter last year — lauded de Blasio’s steps to combat rising hate.

“I applaud the Mayor’s acknowledgement of increased anti-Semitism in our city and country, and the measures he is instituting to combat this scourge,” Koslowitz said in a statement to the Eagle.

Other leaders say the city could be doing more to protect its Jewish constituents, however.

"First we saw swastikas drawn in public places and vandalized synagogues. Then, Jews were physically assaulted on the streets of Brooklyn. Now, the growth of anti-Semitism in the Metropolitan area has a rising body count,” Queens Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal said in a statement to the Eagle.

“This is an unimaginable reality the Jewish community is having to face in what it thought to be the safest of places,” he continued. “We commend the City for being proactive in its public response to this tragedy, but it is frankly not enough. Real resources must be allocated to our communities to not only increase protection, but also to root out antisemitic rhetoric before more lives are lost.”