Jews were also targeted in the majority (54 percent) of all hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024, according to data issued by the NYPD.
By David Michael Swindle, The Algemeiner
The majority of all hate crimes in New York City over the first three months of this year have targeted Jews, according to new data released by the New York Police Department (NYPD).
The striking figures, announced last week by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, will likely fuel criticism of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took office on Jan. 1 and has been accused of promoting antisemitism and not doing enough to denounce violence against Jews.
“Confirmed hate crimes increased nearly 12 percent this quarter citywide. We continue to see that the vast majority of our hate crimes are antisemitic in nature,” Tisch said on Thursday in an appearance at 1 Police Plaza with Mamdani to discuss the overall crime data for the year.
“In fact, in the first quarter of 2026, more than half of all confirmed hate crimes, or 55 percent, were antisemitic, despite Jews only making up approximately 10 percent of the population of New York City,” the police commissioner added.
Explaining that the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force “determines whether an incident meets the legal standard for hate crime under New York state law,” Tisch announced that “as of today, and for the first time, our monthly hate crime data will include two clear, accurate sets of numbers.
Reported hate crimes, those flagged for investigation by the task force and confirmed hate crimes as determined by the task force.”
Tisch called this approach “the gold standard for reporting on hate crimes, and that is what we are going to do going forward. This will ensure that the public has an accurate and timely and more robust view than ever of hate crime activity in New York City.”
Tisch’s comments came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
In January, for example, such crimes skyrocketed by 182 percent during Mamdani’s first month in office compared to the same period last year.
Jews were also targeted in the majority (54 percent) of all hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024, according to data issued by the NYPD.
A recent report released in December by the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism noted that figure rose to a staggering 62 percent in the first quarter of 2025.
Under Mamdani, however, Jewish New Yorkers have expressed particular alarm about their safety.
A far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, Mamdani has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state; supported boycotts of all Israeli-tied entities; and failed to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been used to call for violence against Jews and Israelis around the world.
Last week, the mayor said that New York was welcoming to people of all backgrounds.
“This is a city where everyone who lives here should know that they belong across these five boroughs. There is no person of any faith that should ever be made to feel as if this is not their home, that this is not a place where they can be safe,” he said.
“And frankly, we are looking to build a city where the threshold is not simply safety. We want this to be a city where New Yorkers are cherished, where they are celebrated. And we know that that is the case for many. And still, there is so much more work to be done to ensure that is the case for all.”
Hours after taking office, Mamdani revoked multiple executive orders enacted by his predecessor to combat antisemitism.
Among the most controversial actions was Mamdani’s decision to undo New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, a framework widely used by governments and law enforcement around the world to identify contemporary antisemitic behavior.
The definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations.
In February, a group of New York City politicians and civic leaders sued Mamdani, charging that members of his administration had stonewalled Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests related to his choice to cancel the executive order embracing the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a move supported by the mayor’s inner core of radical, anti-Zionist activists.
A reporter at 1 Police Plaza asked about the nature of New York City’s hate crimes and if they had grown more violent.
Mamdani’s response notably avoided mentioning the Jewish community by name, despite the NYPD’s focus specifically on antisemitic attacks.
“So, the hate crimes that we are seeing are really, like, very across the board. It could be something — an act of violence. It could be drawing a symbol on a wall, like, for example, a swastika,” Tisch added.
“So, I don’t want to characterize them in that way. What I can tell you is that the NYPD has released this month, the gold standard for data about hate crimes. We’ve done this in consultation with experts in the field. And that is data about reported crimes and data about confirmed crimes.”
Concluding the questions, Tisch said, “And so now everyone has access to both pieces of information, and that will continue into the future. I want to make sure that we are incredibly transparent about data because data is power, and I also don’t want to continue or perpetuate the practice of releasing bad data that doesn’t help draw meaningful conclusions.”
Despite Tisch’s comments, not everyone supports the city’s so-called “gold standard” change to hate crime data reporting, which some critics argue is conveniently timed to sanitize the administration’s record on rising antisemitism.
“We’re all watching the manufacturing of propaganda in real time,” Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side, told the New York Post.
“They’ll change the method of counting antisemitic crimes and literally six months later the mayor’s office will claim that antisemitism has dropped.”
Elisha Wiesel, son of the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, shared Steinmetz’s suspicions, telling the Post that “I think there should be a loud outcry telling them to change it back.”
Former NYPD Detective Michael Alcazar, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, called the much-lauded data style an example of “textbook fudging the numbers,” adding, “It’s going to look like they’re combating hate crimes, but they’re not being transparent.”
Alcazar said that if the NYPD really sought transparency, “then they should show the number of complaints they actually receive and what the investigations yielded.”