26 THE QUEENS COURIER • JUNE 6, 2019  FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM 
 Anti-Semitism still rising across Brooklyn and Queens 
 A QUEENS COURIER AND  
 BROOKLYN PAPER SPECIAL 
 Th  is story was written by Mark Hallum,  
 Kevin Duggan and Colin Mixson, and  
 edited by Robert Pozarycki 
 New York City may be the safest big  
 city in the America, according to the  
 mayor and police commissioner — but it  
 is not immune from the troubling wave of  
 anti-Semitism across the country. 
 As anti-Semitic hate crimes remain on  
 the rise, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced  
 the launch of the Offi  ce of the Prevention  
 of Hate Crimes to put a cap on the number  
 of attack and ultimately uphold the  
 city’s new status as the safest big city in  
 America. 
 Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said  
 the highest number of incidents were  
 in precincts outside of Queens, but the  
 “World’s Borough” has had its share of  
 hate crimes in recent months. 
 “We defi nitely see some precincts spiking  
 and taking a disproportionate share  
 of those crimes such as the 71st Precinct  
 and 94th Precinct in Brooklyn. We also  
 see it on the Upper East Side in the  
 19th Precinct,” Shea said. “So, there are  
 hotspots, if you will, where we see a disproportionate  
 share but that’s not to say  
 that it’s confi ned solely to that. We see  
 small instances spread throughout the  
 city.” 
 In November, a 16-year-old yeshiva student  
 was attacked outside of a kosher deli  
 in Forest Hills on 108th Street aft er school  
 had let out. 
 Police attributed the attack as a case of  
 mistaken identity, in which the attackers  
 mistook the Bukharian teen, David  
 Paltielov, 16, for a student at Forest Hills  
 High School. 
 Paltielov was sent to the hospital where  
 he was temporarily in a coma, but made a  
 full recovery. 
 Cops from the 112th Precinct were hesitant  
 to charge the two males arrested with  
 a hate crime, despite the claims by many in  
 the community that the group had belted  
 anti-Semitic insults during the beat-down.  
 Neighborhood Coordination Offi  cers from  
 the precinct described the attack as a “beef”  
 between some of Russian Jewish kids and  
 the Hispanic and black kids at FHHS. 
 In February, swastikas and other anti-Semitic  
 markings were scrawled on the playground  
 of P.S. 139 in Rego Park. 
 Bigots rampage in Brooklyn 
 Brooklyn has been among the areas of  
 the city hardest hit by anti-Semitic hate  
 crimes. One of the more recent incidents  
 occurred on May 30, when a bigot left  an  
 anti-Semitic Post-it note that read “Hitler  
 is coming” on a billboard outside the  
 Jewish Children’s Museum. 
 Witnesses reportedly saw a teenage girl  
 writing the note on the wall — where the  
 organization has invited passersby to leave  
 Post-its describing how they would transform  
  
       
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
     
  
  
 the world. Onlookers  
 put up a search for the vandal, 
  but she had already  
 left  the scene, according to  
 the local Jewish news site  
 Collive.com. 
 Earlier  in  May,  
 anti-Semites  targeted  the  
 Williamsburg area particularly  
 hard.  
 On May 4, a group of  
 men  attacked  a  42-yearold  
 man  wearing  religious  
 garb on Lynch Street  
 near  Broadway,  shouting  
 anti-Semitic  slurs,  before  
 socking him in the face,  
 according to police.  
 Th  ree days later, a teenager  
 snuck up behind an  
 Orthodox  Jewish  man  
 on  Marcy  Avenue  near  
 Rodney Street on May 7,  
 when he brutally sucker  
 punched the man, before  
 fl eeing, cops said. 
 Police arrested a 16-yearold  
 boy  in  connection  
 with  the  May  7  attack  
 Wednesday  morning,  
 charging with him assault  
 as a hate crime, according  
 to police. 
 The  incidents  rattled  
 members of the neighborhood’s  
 Orthodox  Jewish  
 Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Paper 
 community. 
 “People merely walking on the streets  
 here feel like sitting ducks, worrying that  
 they must look over their shoulder in fear  
 of being hurt because of their faith,” said  
 Rabbi David Niederman, executive director  
 of the United Jewish Organization of  
 Williamsburg. 
 Th  e  ongoing  measles  epidemic  also  
 fueled anti-Semitic incidents in Brooklyn.  
 In April, a Jewish man accused an MTA  
 bus driver of attempting to refuse him service  
 on the B57 line in Williamsburg, and  
 then shouting about the measles aft er he  
 was able to run down and board the bus. 
 United against hate 
 During a June 4 press conference, de  
 Blasio and NYPD top brass discusses the  
 initiative to prevent hate crimes through  
 early education as well as hotbeds of violent  
 incidents throughout the city. 
 Th  ough the mayor was cautious to attribute  
 the rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes  
 to fi ery rhetoric across the country, but  
 admitted that nationwide discourse is an  
 underlying cause. 
 “Over the last three years something  
 very dangerous is happening in this country  
 with the rise of white supremacist voices  
 and white supremacist organizations.  
 And what I am trying to help get across is  
 that that threatens so many diff erent people  
 in this country,” de Blasio said. 
 NYPD reported that as of May, anti-Semitic  
 hate crimes had gone up by 60 percent  
 over the same time the year before  
 with 110 incidents in 2018 over 58 in  
 2018. 
 “It’s creating a unity of purpose that  
 I don’t think we’ve ever seen on this  
 level before in the history of New York  
 City. And that is made vivid today by  
 the  community  leaders  who  are  joining  
 us  shoulder-to-shoulder  with  the  
 NYPD to fi ght all crime and particularly  
 to fi ght hate crimes,” O’Neill said. “Th is is  
 how we defeat hate crimes and this is how  
 we defeat hatred.” 
 Read more on QNS.com and  
 BrooklynPaper.com. 
 The Transform the World Exhibit at the Brooklyn Children's Museum was marred by a hateful vandal last month. 
 
				
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