August 24, 2026 — New York
The following column appeared in AM NY.
By Jill Cofskey
Is it safe to wear my Star of David on the subway? Should I take my kippah off before I leave my building? Does a mezuzah on my home or business make me a target?
Every week, I speak with young Jewish New Yorkers. Yet, rather than having conversations about new jobs or the ins and outs of a New York apartment hunt, we are increasingly discussing safety and how we show up in our day-to-day lives.
These are not hypothetical fears. In the first seven months of 2026, there have been 205 confirmed anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City, roughly an incident a day. In July alone, nearly 70% of all confirmed hate crimes citywide targeted Jews, even though Jews make up just 10% of the city’s population. While all other hate crime statistics are down this year, anti-Jewish incidents continue to rise.
The hate and violence behind those numbers are not abstract: a flag bearing a swastika raised over NYU during graduation week. Two Orthodox synagogues in Queens smeared with motor oil and feces. A 64-year-old man shoved to the ground in Midwood, told “that’s what Jews deserve.” A man disrupting Shabbat services and striking a 63-year-old woman at Central Synagogue just days ago.
And on Tisha B’Av–a solemn day on the Jewish calendar that marks the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem–a man leaving synagogue services on the Upper West Side was stabbed with a screwdriver. This happened hours after Mayor Zohran Mamdani called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” and urged his arrest, a statement Jewish leaders across the political spectrum said made an already vulnerable community feel more exposed.
Mamdani sat recently with 10 rabbis spanning the Jewish denominational spectrum, who told him that his rhetoric on Israel is undermining efforts to protect the city’s Jewish population. He has since announced his team will develop a plan to fight antisemitism for the city.
But the Mayor cannot build an Office to Combat Antisemitism with one hand while fanning the flames of hatred that the office exists to address with the other. Jewish New Yorkers do not experience antisemitism and demonization of Israel as neatly separable categories when a man is stabbed leaving a synagogue hours after inflammatory remarks about Israel’s prime minister go viral. This is not a coincidence Jewish New Yorkers are inventing. It is a pattern we are living through.
For the young professionals I work with and the countless others like them, this is the lens through which an entire generation is learning what it means to be Jewish in New York today. Some are quietly deciding to leave. Others are leaning further into community and leadership, refusing to let fear write their story.
City leadership, across every office, is not doing its job when it offers up little more than platitudes. Instead, it owes us decisive action and accountability– every single day.
Jill Cofskey is the Alexander Assistant Director for AJC New York.
