Rep. Richie Torres Urges Department of Justice to Investigate NY’s Failure to Prosecute Hate Crimes

By Yehudit Garmaise

After BoroPark24 reported the attack of a hateful perpetrator who knocked the shtreimel off a Jew onto the sidewalk on 11th Avenue and 45th Street on Shabbos, Mayor Eric Adams tweeted the article, and wrote, “These outrageous attacks on our Jewish community won’t be tolerated, not in our city.”

Rep. Richie Torres, always one to speak out for Jews, however, did more than tweet, when he wrote a letter to the FBI and the US attorney general that called on them to investigate NY district attorneys’ low rates of prosecution of anti-Semitic crimes.

“The federal government can no longer stand by passively as antisemitic violence goes unchecked and unpunished in America’s largest city,” wrote Torres in his letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

“I am respectfully asking the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department to consider investigating New York’s systematic failure to police and prosecute hate crimes and to issue recommendations to reform,” said Rep. Torres (15th).

In his letter, Torres quoted the skyrocketing statistics of anti-Jewish hate crimes compiled by the Anti-Defamation League.

The NYPD has confirmed 149 anti-Jewish hate crimes between the start of the year and June 28, representing an incident every 29 hours on average. The attacks range from violent assaults to racial slurs and property damage, and many more likely go unreported.

Some Jews worry that just as violent hate crimes against Jews rose in 2019 after the media launched an attack on the community during a measles outbreak, the NYTimes latest negative reporting on Chassidic yeshivas will also feed anti-Charedi sentiment.

"2019 saw one of the most if not the most physical attacks and harassment of visibly Jewish people in NY, and it came at a time of inflammatory and misleading rhetoric regarding the Measles outbreak,” explained Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council.