Being Jewish in NYC Right Now
Brian Robinson wrote an article for us in April 2023 about his experience being Jewish in post-pandemic New York. Today, he is a candidate for City Council (District 4) and in light of the terrorist attack in Israel, we wanted to ask him for an update.
FFNY: Brian, 6 months ago, you wrote for us about how it felt being Jewish in NYC and the rise in anti-semitic attacks. In light now of the terrible terrorist attack in Israel, we wanted your thoughts on how the climate has changed in a short amount of time?
BRIAN: The terrorist attack in Israel was one of the most barbaric, and really beyond the realm of nightmares. Jews and non-Jews alike are disgusted by the brutality. I am heartbroken by what has happened, and I am furious and disgusted by the far left’s near-daily celebrations of the massacre of babies, children, mothers, and fathers in their own homes. I knew the far left was anti-semitic, but many New Yorkers are just realizing this truth.
At a great, unbearable cost, eyes are opening to the deeply sinister side of far-left politics which mainly run our city at the moment. Many local politicians are members or affiliates of the Democratic Socialists, who sponsored a celebration of the massacre the day after it happened. At that rally, we saw swastikas and Hamas supporters. We need a major political realignment to keep this city from cracking into pieces.
FFNY: Do you think New York politicians have done all they can to prevent the increase in anti-semitic attacks? What is your policy recommendation to deal with this issue?
BRIAN: No. I think the local Democratic party embraced a specific brand of anti-semitism in order to expand their base. The Democratic primary voters, which run the Democratic machine in most districts and fund most of the leftist politicians, insist upon adoption of this insidious and indoctrination to hate not only Jews, but Americans as well. We need to enforce laws, lock up criminals, support the NYPD, and stop coddling violent offenders as if, somehow, we (the “colonizers”) are to blame for psychopathic behavior. Voter apathy has brought us here. We must show up to change course.
FFNY: In the article, you mentioned that only 1% of those who committed anti-semitic assaults in NYC since 2018 have been sentenced to prison. Has this changed, or are we still dealing with this problem of no consequences for hate crimes?
BRIAN: It still remarkably low, and it’s not just Jews. Asian Americans have also been disproportionately targeted. Nobody should be free to walk the streets after committing a violent hate crime. Criminal justice “reforms” must be reversed so the people of NYC can walk the streets again without feeling like they must constantly look over their shoulders.
Being Jewish in NYC Since the Pandemic
By Brian Robinson (April 2023)
This week, a large group of Jewish kids donning yarmulkes were playing basketball in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Innocently, they were shooting around, crashing the boards, and just enjoying a beautiful sundrenched day thanks to Spring's early arrival. The fun stopped, abruptly, when two teenagers dropped in to giddily revel in a verbal barrage directed at all the Jewishs kids on the court. “Every Jew Shot” they screamed, “Big Hitler Comeback”, they fumed. Then to top it off: A Heil Hitler Salute from each of them.
We should show compassion. It’s not too late for him to understand the horrors of his actions. Antisemitism has been around forever and, as Jews, we deal with it. We are survivors. What can we do?
In a vacuum, when times are good, and there is no massive surge in hard crime including murders, robberies, and sexual assaults since the pandemic, and if we were not living in a city where antisemitic violent assaults increased an unfathomable 325% between 2020 and 2021 while rising another 43% in 2022, I might agree with this approach.
But these kids are not the problem, rather a symptom of large scale negligence brought on by soft on crime law makers that operate as zealous activists rather than upstanding government officials whose task it is to ensure their constituents are safe, and their city is thriving. The city is not thriving, and Jews are no longer safe here.
Ironically, many of our high level government officials are Jewish themselves. Are they concerned with the abominable rise in violence against their own people? Of course they are. Just ask Congressman Daniel Goldman representing New York’s District 10.
At the New York Jewish Agenda’s Democratic Congressional Forum held at Congregation Beth Elohim, (of which I was a participant before I switched parties) we were all asked a straightforward question: What did we think caused the dramatic rise in anti-semitic violence in D10 (Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn including Boro Park). His answer, the same as all other Democrats except mine: White supremacy.
Now, you’ll get no argument out of me if asked whether white supremacy has been a motivating factor in anti-semitic violence, both historically and to this day in parts of our country. But that wasn’t the question, and Daniel Goldman knew it. They all knew it. But narrative is all that is holy to modern NY Democrats. I watched as each progressive stood up and blamed the heinous violence against Jewish people in Manhattan and Brooklyn on a contingent of white supremacists in New York City.
Brian Robinson & Daughter
“A recent study reveals that only 1.03% of those that committed antisemitic assaults in NYC since 2018 have been sentenced to prison. Recently, Alvin Bragg cut a plea deal with a man whose crimes technically had him facing 8 years in prison. Bragg reduced his sentence to 6 months.”
I stood up, bewildered, and respectfully disagreed. I pleaded with the congregation, “If we are not willing to truthfully identify the problem, how are we ever going to solve it?”. I explained that pinning violence against a group of people responsible for so much pain is tempting, but we do ourselves a great disservice to state flat out statistical inaccuracies when the stakes are so high. The people attacking Jews in Manhattan and Brooklyn are not white nationalists, or people wearing Trump hats… They are other minorities.
I figured I’d have the Twitter mob on me for at least a week after that outburst... To my surprise, I received the first real applause of the night. Standing there in a synagogue located in the progressive epicenter that is Park Slope, my Jewish brothers and sisters were clapping for me. I broke the narrative, and hell did not reign down upon me, as it so often can. I was shocked, and felt hope for something I was beginning to see as futile.
The optimism I felt from that night, despite the massive political machinery we are still up against, was enough for me to decide to keep fighting. Somewhere, beyond the label of Democrat, of which most Jews identify with, are people that understand how vulnerable they are, and how much they have to lose if we don’t pay attention.
The critical moment for Jews to come together is now. Since the pandemic began, and as a result of the monstrous murder of George Floyd, our culture has gone haywire. Suddenly, and to a far larger extent than even before the pandemic, the dominant progressive left’s obsession with race and identity hit an insidious fever pitch. The excessively racial politics of today have put Jews in great danger, and those who assault us, don’t serve time, or even go to prison. 69 percent of those who have committed violent crimes against us from 2019-2022 are African American.
A Lack of Accountability
In a city where criminals have become a protected class, it has become unreasonably difficult to call for justice. DA’s don’t want to prosecute, and the progressive mindset is locked into a perverse philosophy that seeks to punish victims and infantilize offenders. In the mind of progressives, criminals are victims of a society that has forced their hand into a life of crime by an oppressive system. Talk about a get out of jail free card? This is lunacy. We have managed to elect the equivalent of dorm room stoners high on notions of communism (an insidious philosophy that has led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the name of social equity).
We all know that most African Americans are not anti-semitic. Certainly, none that I call friends. That said, we cannot solve this, if we aren’t willing to have the difficult conversations that are necessary to ensure the personal safety of all New Yorkers. We must address the toxic notion that has infiltrated the zeitgeist of the post pandemic era that divides humans into “oppressors'' and “those who are oppressed”. This is divisive and fuels hatred. Africans Americans and Jews have both been through periods of unspeakable atrocities.
It’s hard to believe that 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe less than one-hundred years ago. The harsh immorality of slavery in this country leaves a lasting resentment to this day. These are groups of people who have been on the wrong side of the worst that humanity is capable of. And yet, in 2023, the flames of antisemitism are burning furiously once again? We have to ask ourselves, why us, and why now?
We can no longer depend on the NY Democratic party to keep our streets safe or practice responsible rhetoric. The police have been stripped of their morale by a radically misguided “defund the police” campaign that was egged on by most of the Dems that still hold office. It might not fit their narrative, for it would mean admitting that they were wrong to bring such dishonor to public servants, but the vast majority of cops are good people. The officers who haven’t left the force now operate with their hands tied. Recidivist criminals that commit crimes just below the threshold of bail eligible offenses (pretty much everything) rule the streets, projecting their worst impulses on a society that refuses to hold them accountable for their actions.
Credibility Lost
A recent study reveals that only 1.03% of those that committed antisemitic assaults in NYC since 2018 have been sentenced to prison. Recently, Alvin Bragg cut a plea deal with a man that viciously beat down a man wearing a Yarmulke with crutches and pepper spray, whose crimes technically had him facing 8 years in prison. Bragg reduced his sentence to 6 months. This from a man who stated gleefully, and without ambiguity, that “He’d do it again”. The DA has no interest in punishing those who have the potential to repeatedly kill others, and our politicians are either too radical or too scared to speak out.
It's time for Jews in NYC to drop the Democrats and seek out well intentioned Republicans and Independents who are committed to our well-being, and not that of criminals. Progressives have let the city erode in all categories related to quality of life. They call this erosion “social justice”. We have to unite and show this city that we will not be silent as our people are attacked repeatedly. We will not vote for those who enable the beatings of our people, for those who only speak out against antisemitism when it is politically convenient, and fits a narrative of white men in Trump hats doing evil deeds.
The NY Dems have lost credibility on so many levels since the pandemic began, and they are so drunk on power, that they feel no obligation to admit to any of it. It’s our fault. They see themselves as the new masters of the universe. Any rational rebuttal to their logic is usually met with some nonsense about Donald Trump to distract you from the horrid job they have been doing running this city. Each iteration of elections brings an even more radical breed of “Democrat” that cares even less for their constituencies. Many of them openly loathe their voters.
I know many Jews think that voting for Democrats is a moral decision. To that extent, they are correct. But if they care for the wellbeing of the city they love, and the ancient tribe that is tested time and time again, of which they are members, the only moral choice is to fire the Democrats. Our lives, our beautiful city, the kids that play basketball on sunny afternoons, the commuters that take the subway everyday in the hope today is not the day they become a statistic, depend on your willingness to soul search, and realize that the Democrats have disappeared years ago. I challenge the 90 percent of Jews that are not complicit in the unraveling of the greatest city ever built, to stop denying our new reality, and to vote differently.