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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo directed State Police Wednesday to further increase patrols and security in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods across the State. The Governor also visited an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Williamsburg with Rabbi David Niederman to show support for the Jewish Community in the wake of the stabbing in Monsey and a recent rash of other anti-Semitic attacks.  His visit was in the wake of an attack on a Hasidic Jewish man in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

"The Governor's appearance over the last few days, knows that it's not only words, I'm standing in solidarity, but he really proposed a lot of actions to make sure people will think not twice, but three times, if they are going to commit a hate crime," said Rabbi David Niederman. "The Governor's proposing it. Rules and regulations, not only take off the guns, because that's not enough, you can commit crimes, hate crimes, even if it's not fatal, but are detrimental to the families, verbal or assaults, and the Governor is looking to strengthen that hate crime provision to make sure that no Jewish community, no community, will have to go through what we have been going through. And you should feel safe when you send your child to go to Shul or you go to Shul. You shouldn't be afraid by what happened in Monsey, you shouldn't be afraid when you have the children coming home from school. And we hope that it's a new beginning, it's a new decade, and we're looking forward to leading a safe, peaceful community, being able to continue our religious traditions the way we had that for generations and generations."

Anti-Semetic hate crimes were up over 50% in 2019 from the previous year.  The Williamsburg incident was the 13th attack on Jews in New York City since two days before Christmas.  The Williamsburg attack began when two women yelled slurs and then attacked the victim when he attempted to cal 911.

The Williamsburg attack occurred in the wake of a vicious knife attack on Jews in Monsey, New York, who were celebrating Hanukah.  Cuomo called that attack a "blatant act of domestic terrorism", and has directed the State Police to investigate all the attacks as hate crimes.

"It's not just standing in solidarity, which we do, it's taking actions to make you secure in your community," Cuomo said Wednesday. "You see more police now, which we said we would do and we're going to continue to do. I'm proposing a new law that I want them to pass in January - we're in January, when the Legislature comes back in one week - a domestic terrorism law. You know what happened in Monsey? It was terrorism. It was a hate crime and it was terrorism. When you attack people, and you're trying to hurt or murder a large number of people because of their race or their religion, that is terrorism, it's domestic terrorism. Terrorist doesn't have to come on a plane, you can have a person in this country who's a terrorist, a domestic terrorist."

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