December 29, 2019, 06:25 AM
wcb6092Rockland County synagogue stabbings: Suspect in police custody
https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/...nd-county-synagogue/A knife-wielding assailant stabbed four people in a rabbi’s basement synagogue in Rockland County during a crowded Hanukkah celebration Saturday night, according to a law enforcement source.
The suspect fled the scene in a 2015 Nissan Sentra, driving over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan — and was promptly arrested by the NYPD at 144th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem at midnight, the source said.
He was being held early Sunday at the 32nd Precinct until State Troopers, the lead agency responding to the attack, could transport him back upstate, the source said.
One victim was left in critical condition in the attack, which happened at around 10 p.m. when a man walked into the basement synagogue in Monsey with a machete or similarly large knife and began attacking people, the source said.
Between 50 and 100 people were inside the synagogue, which is known locally as Rabbi Rottenberg’s Shul.
Those gathered had just lit the menorah on the second-to-last night of the holiday, according to Aron Kohn, 65, who was inside.
“He just took it (the knife) out and started to run at people,” Kohn said.
Kohn described a frantic scene inside, saying he threw whatever furniture he could lay his hand on at the maniac.
“I saw him stabbing people and I started throwing chairs and tables,” Kohn said.
After slashing four people inside — a fifth person was injured in the panic — the attacker attempted to enter the temple next door to the rabbi’s house, but fled after he failed to gain access.
Lazer Klein, 19, who lives in the neighborhood, said he saw people “running away, screaming and calling the cops.”
“I saw someone lying on the stairs,” Klein added. “I saw people getting carried out. I saw blood. One guy was lying limp on the stretcher.”
Victims were transported to Westchester Medical Center and Montefiore Nyack Hospital, a source told The Post.
The incident is the latest in an area spate of violent incidents against the Orthodox Jewish community. So far during Hanukkah, eight anti-Semitic attacks have been reported in New York City.
The NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau tweeted that the incident is being monitored.
“I am horrified by the stabbing of multiple people at a synagogue in Rockland county tonight,” Gov. Cuomo tweeted.
“We have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism in NY and we will hold the attacker accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he tweeted.
Tweeted Mayor de Blasio: “Horrific. So many Jewish families in our city have close ties to Monsey. We cannot overstate the fear people are feeling right now. I’ve spoken to longtime friends who, for the first time in their lives, are fearful to show outward signs of their Jewish faith.”
Dov Hikind, the former state assemblyman and founder of the Americans Against Antisemitism group, called the attack “Unbelievable.”
“It just doesn’t stop,” he said as he rushed north to the scene from the city.
“Between Jersey City and New York and now this — all of this hate is affecting people,” Hikind continued, “and giving sick people a license to attack Jews.”
Attorney General Letitia James tweeted: “I am deeply disturbed by the situation unfolding in Monsey, New York tonight.
“There is zero tolerance for acts of hate of any kind and we will continue to monitor this horrific situation. I stand with the Jewish community tonight and every night.”
Suspects released without bail after shocking attacks on Jews
https://nypost.com/2019/12/28/...ing-attacks-on-jews/uspects arrested in last week’s spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to “bail reform” legislation — which doesn’t even take effect until Jan. 1.
The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.
The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.
“F-U, Jews!” Harris, 30, of Flatbush, allegedly shouted during the attack.
“Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her.
“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews.”
As she stood before a judge in Brooklyn Criminal Court with the hood to a navy blue jacket over her head, Harris was in familiar territory.
She still has an open harassment and assault case on the Brooklyn docket from November 2018.
And last month, she was sentenced to no jail time for felony criminal mischief in Manhattan, court records show — a case for which she had repeatedly failed to make court appearances.
Brooklyn prosecutors didn’t even bother requesting bail Saturday, as they could have, given that the reform law, approved in April, technically doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.
“The de Blasio administration has made it clear that we all need to get into compliance with bail reform now,” said a law enforcement source.
“If prosecutors had asked for bail, corrections would release them immediately,” or they would be sprung on Jan. 1, the source said.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson even made mention of the coming bail reform legislation in ordering Harris freed.
“So I’m releasing her on consent and also because it will be required under the statute in just a few days,” the judge said.
“Ms. Harris you’re being released on your own recognizance.”
She was issued an order of protection barring contact with the three victims — and a court date of Jan. 10.
Harris broke into a grin when approached by a reporter. “Why do you want to know?” she said. ”Goodbye.”
The legislation requires arraignment judges to set free suspects in any non-sexual assault that doesn’t actually cause a physical injury, even in cases of hate crime attacks.
“If there is an injury, then bail could be requested, because then it would be considered a violent felony,” explained Insha Rahman, who, as director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice, worked closely with legislators and the governor’s office in drafting the controversial reforms.
The no-injury loophole will mean a quick get-out-of-jail free card for all but one of the accused attackers in the eight Hanukkah-timed, anti-Semitic bias crimes that have terrified the city’s Orthodox communities.
“You have to beat the hell out of somebody — or murder them — for there to be any consequences,” said former state lawmaker Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism. “Otherwise, you are set free.”
see also
Four Jewish women targeted in latest anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn
He continued: “It’s open season in New York — open season on innocent people. On Jews, on Muslims, on gay people. It applies to anybody. But it’s the Jewish people in particular who have been targeted.”
Only one of last week’s eight attacks resulted in an actual physical injury — that of a 65-year-old Jewish man who was punched and kicked on Monday morning at East 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.
“F–k you, Jew bastard!” the petrified victim told cops his assailant shouted.
The suspect in that crime, Steven Jorge, 28, is indeed alleged to have injured his victim, and so was ordered locked up with no bail pending a psychological examination.
Jorge, though, is the exception.
On Friday night, a suspect in another of the hate attacks was similarly sprung with no bail, though in her case she was at least ordered to attend twice-monthly mental health appointments.
“You f—king Jew, the end is coming for you!” that suspect, Ayana Logan, 43, allegedly shouted as she swung a handbag at a 34-year-old Orthodox mom in Gravesend.
The mother had been holding the hand of her 3-year-old son when the unprovoked attack happened, according to the criminal court complaint against Logan.
By Saturday night, Logan, Harris, and Jorge remained the only suspects apprehended in the hate spree. The assailants in the remaining five attacks remain at large.
Rahman and other reformers argue that the vast majority of suspects in minor assaults are quickly released anyway — and that the new bail reform lets judges set conditions for release that can address the underlying mental-health issues.
“That can be mental health counseling, a stay-away order, which wasn’t readily available before, as conditions for release,” said Rahman.
Suspects are getting none of that during their pretrial stays in city jails, Rahman noted.
“Money bail, and keeping someone temporarily detained with no care, doesn’t address at all the long term concerns” of community safety and the well-being of suspects, she said.
But in the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods, there was outrage in learning that even when violent bigots are caught, they’ll be immediately released.
“They were released on no bail?” a 32-year-old Orthodox man asked a Post reporter near where the three women were attacked. “Disgusting.”
Steve Benjamin, 30, of Borough Park, said, “We’re scared to walk at night in the street.
“There is a lot of hate here and I don’t know why. People in the community are scared. It’s very dangerous. It’s just like remembering the days before World War II. I don’t let my kids out alone.
“It should be more justice — they arrest them, but they let them out of jail a day later.”
December 30, 2019, 06:47 AM
wcb6092Suspect in Antisemitic Attack in New York Arrested for Assault Day After Release
https://www.breitbart.com/crim...t-day-after-release/A suspect in one of the recent antisemitic attacks that have plagued New York City in recent months was arrested on Sunday — one day after being released from jail without having to post bail.
Several suspects have been released quickly in recent days, according to the New York Post, reportedly under pressure from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who wants local courts to comply with a forthcoming New York State law restricting cash bail. The new law only goes into effect on Jan. 1, but the city is reportedly pushing courts to begin reform now.
Tiffany Harris, 30, was arrested early Friday morning after allegedly striking three Orthodox Jewish women in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, according to the Associated Press. She was released without bail on Saturday, the New York Post reported.
The Post elaborated:
A day after she was released without bail on charges stemming from the Friday attack, Tiffany Harris was charged with assault for slugging a 35-year-old in the face on Eastern Parkway near Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights at about 9:15 a.m., according to police.
It’s unclear if Sunday’s victim is Jewish — and police weren’t treating the incident as a hate crime. The victim suffered swelling and bruising to her right eye from the pummeling, police said.
On Friday, Harris allegedly assaulted three Orthodox women on Eastern Parkway near Kingston Avenue — one of at least eight anti-Semitic incidents in the city last week.
“Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews,” Harris admitted to cops after that attack, according to a criminal complaint.
Mayor de Blasio suggested Sunday that President Donald Trump was to blame for recent incidents of violent antisemitism in the wake of a brutal attack in Monsey, New York, on Saturday night, in which a machete-wielding intruder stabbed five religious Jews.
The suspect, Grafton Thomas, 38, was arrested in Harlem, and was allegedly covered in blood.
January 02, 2020, 09:04 PM
wcb6092Media victim-blames Jews for anti-Semitic attacks
https://www.washingtonexaminer...anti-semitic-attacksAnti-Semitic attacks are increasing at an alarming rate in the New York area, and NBC New York seems to think Hasidic and Orthodox Jews have somehow created this problem by … living there.
In a now-deleted tweet, the media outlet shared a story and claimed “the expansion of Orthodox communities outside NYC” has resulted in “civic sparring,” and “some fear the recent violence may be an outgrowth of that conflict.” NBC New York deleted the tweet shortly after, but the story, originally reported and written by the Associated Press, itself isn’t much better. In fact, it might be worse.
The growing Jewish presence in New York’s suburbs “has led to predictable sparing over new housing development and local political control,” the article states. Some communities have even passed zoning ordinances to make themselves less attractive to Hasidic Jews, since they have “special needs” such as “housing for large families and residences within walking distance to a synagogue.” This creates “demands that are counter to many of the communities they’re residing in,” according to Rockland County Executive Ed Day.
That should have been the part of the interview where the AP's reporter interrupted Day and pushed back on his incredible claim that Jewish needs are outside the scope of Rockland County’s responsibilities. Instead, the network went out of its way to justify what he was saying!
“In small towns everywhere, resentment against newcomers and ‘outsiders’ isn't uncommon,” the story states. “Proposals for multi-family housing complexes in sleepy communities of single-family homes often trigger fervent opposition complete with lawn signs and rowdy town board meeting crowds.”
Civic disputes in Jewish communities are indeed a reality and should be reported as such. But to turn them into some kind of rationale for anti-Semitic violence is to insinuate that Orthodox Jews brought it on themselves — that they could have prevented these attacks by not engaging in said civic disputes and simply accept that they cannot live in certain counties.
The insinuation could also be that local counties share part of the blame for enforcing policies that create such civic disputes, but Day does not seem to think so, based on what he says.
NBC New York and the AP aren't the only ones who have floated this theory either. The Forward once ran a piece featuring a quote making the case that black people identify Judaism "as a form of almost hyper-whiteness." And in the Daily Beast, an author explained that anti-Semitism is "sometimes wedded to quasi-progressive concerns about racial justice, or, more broadly, to grievances against Jews as usurious landlords or agents of gentrification."
This is victim-blaming in its own right and should be treated as such. The only ones responsible for the Monsey, New York, attack and those before it are the anti-Semitic perpetrators who carried them out.
Our culture, too, shares part of the blame for normalizing mainstream anti-Semitism, giving anti-Semites the justifications they seek. And in that sense, local communities — such as Rockland County, which has the largest Jewish population per capita of any U.S. county — should be more conscientious of this problem and do all it can to prevent it. And that means welcoming New York’s ultra-Orthodox community and passing policies that not only accept them but allow them to flourish.
Rockland County should gladly accommodate its Jewish neighbors’ “special needs,” as the AP dubbed them because the Jewish community is Rockland County’s community. These are the people city leaders such as Day signed up to represent, and frankly, Rockland’s Jewish population isn’t asking for anything that other communities — say, Brooklyn — haven't been able to provide.
This is a legitimate problem this country must wrestle with, and it’s good that the media is starting to pay attention. This is not the example to follow.
