Read the full article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Back in 2019, the left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice started working on a plan they said would keep New York City Jews safe.
In the years since, antisemitic incidents have ticked up, and lawmakers and Jewish leaders have sought solutions like boosting security and enacting buffer zones outside houses of worship.
Now, JFREJ is laying out a 74-page proposal that argues the problem is best addressed not with law enforcement, but by “going after root causes” of hate and building ties across communities.
“Our traditional responses — policing, and prosecution and arrest — have not reversed the trend of rising hate violence, because they can’t,” said Audrey Sasson, executive director of JFREJ, in front of City Hall on Thursday.
“The Jewish community has never been offered real prevention options at scale,” Sasson added. “Instead, elected officials — as we’ve seen recently — have repeatedly divided us from our neighbors and offered us mask bans, buffer zones and security theater.”
The group now has an ally in City Hall. Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a key plank of his vision on Thursday, an Office of Community Safety that shifts some responsibilities historically afforded to police to other entities.
The goal of the proposal, according to Leo Ferguson, JFREJ’s scholar-in-residence and the lead author on the report, is to “bring communities together around shared goals” so that, in times of crisis, “bonds of connection” between different communities are already built. Groups that consulted on the proposal, representing Muslim, Asian-American, LGBTQ and immigrant communities, joined JFREJ for the launch.
Traditional Jewish groups largely view JFREJ’s vision of public safety as naive at best, given the particular risks that Jews in New York City can face. And Jewish security groups like the Secure Community Network say that coordination with law enforcement is key to stopping violence against Jewish institutions.
Referring to Michigan’s Temple Israel in a recent Zoom webinar, SCN national director Michael Masters said the synagogue’s “prior investments in security, emergency planning, and training — as well as coordination with law enforcement — averted what could have been an immense tragedy.”
SCN lists ensuring “awareness and coordination with law enforcement,” and with Jewish security groups, at the top of its eight security recommendations. Other recommendations include extending security perimeters around events and adding armed guards or police officers, which JFREJ’s report argues isn’t a “sustainable strategy.”
But the proposal’s defenders say it’s worth paying attention. “Listen, I get it — it sounds woo woo,” said progressive Councilmember Tiffany Caban. “But it’s backed by empirical evidence and research.”
The report calls for investment in “intergroup collaborative projects” that would foster connections across lines of difference, overseen by district-based or community-based program managers.
“From renovating a playground, to operating a soup kitchen, to tenant organizing, to planning a street fair, we should look at many local activities as potential sites of intergroup relationship building,” the report reads.
Synagogues across the city are currently boosting security measures amid what one Jewish security watchdog called “the most elevated and complex threat environment” in recent history. In the wake of the attack in Michigan, the Community Security Initiative is offering a temporary reimbursement for smaller Jewish institutions that wish to hire a new guard and is now recommending that guards be armed.
JFREJ has long been skeptical of armed guards or police at Jewish institutions, saying that they can contribute to overpolicing and do not fundamentally change the risk profile Jews face.
“There is real danger that we cannot and should not ignore, and there are instances where heroic armed individuals have saved lives,” the report reads. “But unless we are dealing with root causes, we are simply allowing many communities to live in a state of perpetual fear, while offloading rare, but extreme danger onto a tiny group of usually poorly paid hired guards or other first responders.”
The proposal calls for increased investment in diversity and anti-bias education, as well as upstander and bystander intervention training. Altogether, it calls for an annual budget of $26 to $30 million per year, and an 800% increase in the hate violence prevention budget.
That 800% figure is the exact same increase that Mamdani, then a candidate, pledged in a Q&A with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last year. The progressive groups held their announcement just minutes before Mamdani announced the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety, which he said will oversee hate crime prevention — to a scaled-down tune of a $260 million total budget.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams thanked the progressive groups for drafting the report — and said he thinks “we have leaders in place now that understand it.”
Elle Bisgaard Church, Mamdani’s chief of staff, said in an interview that the mayor’s office has had one briefing from JFREJ on the plan and “would like to do much more close collaboration together.”
“JFREJ was very helpful in developing some of the original vision around the Department of Community Safety,” Bisgaard Church said. “And our intent is very much still to work together to understand what they, along with many other groups, see as the new solutions, the new investments that are required.” Bisgaard Church said Renita Francois, the newly appointed deputy mayor of community safety, will be involved in that process.