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Adams stated that every officer, trainer, and city employee “must know how to recognize and respond” to antisemitism.
By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner
Roughly 150 public safety professionals from across New York City on Monday attended a “first-of-its-kind” training on antisemitism hosted by Mayor Eric Adams’ Office to Combat Antisemitism and the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry at the Police Academy in Flushing, Queens.
Public safety officers and trainers from over a dozen city agencies attended the workshop, including the New York City Police Department (NYPD), school safety division, parks enforcement patrol, taxi and limousine commission police, and the departments of sanitation, health and mental hygiene, environmental protection, corrections, probation, and administration for children’s services.
The mayor’s office said the “high-level” event highlighted “the city’s commitment to equipping frontline personnel with the tools, context, and understanding to identify and respond to antisemitism in its modern forms.”
Monday’s session opened with remarks from First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Daughtry, and Moshe Davis, executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
“This training is part of our city’s all-of-government approach to combat antisemitism head-on. We are not only responding to hate but working to understand where it’s coming from, who is fueling it, and how it’s evolving,” Davis said.
“Education is a powerful tool in that fight. By equipping our public safety professionals with the knowledge and context they need, we’re ensuring they can confront antisemitism wherever it appears, whether it be in our parks, our schools, our streets, and beyond. This is how we protect the safety and civil rights of every Jewish New Yorker.”
After opening remarks, there were presentations led by two experts in the field of antisemitism.
David Collins, a retired FBI special agent and senior research fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism, discussed continuously evolving antisemitic extremism in the United States, and the ties between propaganda, terrorism, and the increase in anti-Israel rhetoric.
EJ Kimball, director of interfaith engagement at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, then talked to the public safety professionals about how to recognize and identify hate symbols and behaviors, antisemitism, and other forms of hate in their respective fields.
Monday’s event was the first of a series of workshops that the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism will organize for city employees in the next few months to ensure that they are receiving the training and understanding needed to confront antisemitism.
“Keeping New York City’s streets safe is the first step to fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate,” Adams said in a released statement.
He noted that every officer, trainer, and city employee “must know how to recognize and respond” to antisemitism.
“That’s why we brought together New York City’s public safety leadership, to confront how antisemitism is evolving: how ancient hatred is being repackaged through conspiracy theories, political extremism, and propaganda masquerading as activism,” he explained.
Adams added that his administration created the Office to Combat Antisemitism to lead with “clarity, coordination, and education, and it’s why we’re now training the people who keep this city safe.”
“From swastikas and inverted red triangles to threats against Jewish students or synagogues, we will not let hate gain ground,” he said, referring to the fact that inverted red triangles have become a symbol of support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“In the face of rising global antisemitism, New York is setting a national standard. Here, we fight hate with action. We will fight for the city we love,” the mayor added
Adams’ interagency task force to combat antisemitism held its inaugural meeting in July. A month earlier, New York City adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
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