New York Mayor Eric Adams said this week that anti-Semitism is “spreading like cancer across the city” and revealed that 57% of hate crimes recorded in New York target Jews. The statement was made during a speech in which the mayor denounced the growing wave of hostility against Jews and criticized public demonstrations that praise the terrorist group Hamas.
Adams said he has “deep concerns about what is happening” in New York and across the U.S., “particularly when it comes to anti-Semitism.” According to him, prejudice against Jews has been gaining new forms of expression in the country and needs to “be combatted firmly”.
New York has been the epicenter of often violent anti-Israel demonstrations. Recently, a local far-left group decided to pay tribute to terrorist leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that fight for the destruction of the State of Israel.
“Activism is not an excuse for anti-Semitism or hatred,” said the mayor, according to the newspaper The Times of Israelhighlighting that anti-Semitism “is a virus that mutates, comes back in different forms and finds new ways to hide in the open.”
Adams also warned that “disagreeing with the policies of the Israeli government does not make someone anti-Semitic,” but that “praising Hamas in a public facility sends a message of institutionalizing hate.” According to him, history shows that “hate starts on the margins, with a few artists trying to make a statement, and then moves to the margins.” mainstreammaking it much more difficult to combat.”
In his speech, the mayor also criticized the socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is openly an anti-Israel activist and the current favorite in the polls to succeed him. According to the Times of IsraelMamdani had already defended the use of the slogan “Globalize the intifada”, an expression that Adams classified as a call to violence.
“We will never surrender our city to hatred or to those who say they want to globalize the intifada, because it is literally a phrase that means ‘death to Jews around the world,’” he said.
