News Sparks: Eric Adams Said He Would Increase Visibility of Police Presence on Subways; Israel Extends Quarantine for Non-Vaccinated Travelers; and More

By Yehudit Garmaise

Eric Adams Will Increase Visibility of Police on Subways 

Eric Adams will make the NYPD presence more visible in the subways, Janno Lieber, the acting chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) told The New York Post, reporting a conversation he had with the mayor-elect.

After many of the cities’ unions, citizens, and reporters asked Mayor Bill de Blasio to increase the police presence on the subway lines, in May, the mayor finally surged 500 additional police officers into the city’s 472 subway stations, and, as a result, police reported a drop in major crimes.

“They gave us more cops,” said Lieber, who worries about riders’ perception of safety, as much as their actual safety. “But the issue that I’ve been raising with the Police Department now, in the last month or so, is the visibility of that police force. 

“Are they in positions or locations where people feel vulnerable? Are they on the platforms, crowded stations where this feeling of risk is felt? Are the [cops] riding the trains?”

“You want to feel like walking into the system, it’s a public space and you’re in an environment where people are playing by the rules,” he said, citing smoking, not wearing a mask and the presence of homeless people who are mentally ill.

“We need cooperation with the police department to attack issues of disorder and all the conditions that make riders feel less comfortable, less safe, and more vulnerable.”

Israel Re-Closes its Borders, Extends Quarantines of Non-Vaccinated Citizens Returning to Country after Travel

After closing its borders to non-citizens on Nov. 28, until further notice, Israel has intensified its travel requirements in the hopes that the country can prevent the spread of COVID and its variants.

All Israeli travelers are required to take PCR tests upon their arrivals to Ben Gurion Airport and, again, after their quarantines are completed.

While vaccinated Israelis are required to go into isolation for three days, now non-vaccinated residents must quarantine for seven days, whether or not they previously have recovered from COVID.

Travelers who do not take PCR tests must remain in isolation for two weeks.

Last year, 17 US Colleges Considered BDS Resolutions, 11 Passed

Student governments at 17 college campuses nationwide, during the 2020-21 school year, discussed passing resolutions to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which said the number was not dramatically higher than in years past.

Of the 17, 11 schools passed the BDS resolutions, which were taken on during a school year in which in May 2021, Hamas launched more than 4,360 unguided rockets at Israeli citizens, according to Israeli authorities and the Human Rights Watch.

Attacks from Hamas in Gaza are almost always accompanied by widespread criticism of Israel on college campuses and other left-wing environments.

The ADL, which is group that keeps its eye out for anti-Semitism, called the BDS resolutions a “cornerstone of anti-Israel campus activity during the last year.”

Adams to Name Brooklynite David Banks as DOE Chancellor

In his first significant appointment to his incoming administration, Mayor-elect Eric Adams is expected to name longtime city educator David Banks as the next chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (DOE) tomorrow in Crown Heights at Public School 161, which Banks attended and is only blocks away from where he started his career as a school administrator 30 years ago.

Banks, who grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, founded The Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, mentored outgoing Chancellor Meisha Porter, and started the Eagle Academy for Young Men geared toward boys of color.

The academy has since expanded to six public schools that prepare inner-city young men for college.