Asians and Jews: The sleeping giant combo that could save NYC

Early on during my tenure as media director for the Israeli consulate in New York City in 2021, we received a clear directorate from Jerusalem that our staff needed to focus on the rising instances of antisemitic attacks in our region and act as a strong voice calling for better protections for all of America's Jews. 

Of course I was glad to see that the Foreign Ministry had made this rare exception to the rules against commenting on the domestic affairs of host countries. Plus, the rise in antisemitic attacks in New York City was something I had been writing about and decrying on social media since 2019. One of the most disturbing aspects of that story was the fact that it seemed like New York City's politicians, especially then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, were working to suppress this story or ridiculously blame attacks in the city on the KKK and President Trump. 

But there was an added plus to this directive from Israel: it was a chance to hone another standing directive of reaching out to non-Jewish immigrant communities in New York and building on our common causes. In this case, it was obvious which immigrant group would be the most receptive to the idea of working together to combat the massive increase in violent, bigoted attacks: Asian-Americans. 

One would have to be blind not to notice that the attacks on Jews and Asian-Americans in New York City not only rose in tandem between 2019-21, but were also eerily similar in their defining characteristics. It seemed like every day, a Jewish or AAPI (Asian-American Pacific Islander) New Yorker was being physically attacked in the same neighborhoods, on the same streets and Subway trains, and by the same kind of perpetrators. As obvious as this frightening common trend was, it seemed like no journalists even picked up on it with the exception of the indefatigable CeFaan Kim of WABC-TV news. Kim quickly became the clearest media expert on anti-Asian AND antisemitic violence in the city. Naturally, he was one of the first people I reached to from the consulate to get the most honest picture of just how bad the situation was for both groups. Kim then provided me with evidence that it was much worse than the NYPD and the mayor's office were willing to admit. We indeed were facing a crisis. 

The next part of my mission, finding AAPI leaders in the city willing to speak out about this growing violence, let alone partner with Jewish community leaders, was much harder. I never detected a lack of will on the part of the AAPI people I spoke to, but I did find a general lack of organization and unified messaging. The language barrier was also very steep at times, as most of the news sites and newspapers catering to the AAPI population in New York were not in English and very few of the key journalists working for them were completely bilingual. 

But there's still no doubt that there is more than just common cause at play for these two communities. A joining of forces between AAPI and Jewish New Yorkers would create a political force that even the most deliberately tone deaf NYC politician would not be able to ignore. This is especially true in Brooklyn and Queens, two boroughs that can easily swing a mayoral and even some statewide elections given the right set of circumstances. 

Since 2021, the common cause issues for Asians and Jews in New York have only grown. The city is now suffering from not just a rise in hate crimes, but a spike in all crime spurred by the election of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg and his policy of not enforcing the most effective anti-crime laws and sentences. This is a threat to all New Yorkers of course, but especially to small business owners and residents of predominantly Jewish and AAPI neighborhoods. 

Another very emotional common cause issue for both communities is the push to undermine merit-based admissions policies at the city's best public high schools, including Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech. This blatantly anti-Asian policy continues to get mostly a free pass from the city's one party-dominated City Council and other politicians. Jewish New Yorkers are also negatively hit by this policy, as is the entire educational system. If one truly desires to improve the educational opportunities for New Yorkers who aren't passing the competitive high school exam in decent numbers, the answer isn't to lower the standards based on a list of approved races over others. I'd recommend following the Israeli model, where elite students and faculty at the best universities there provide free tutoring to kids in poor-performing schools so they can get the skills they need to pass the same entrance tests everyone else takes. The results have been fantastic. I can only imagine how many students at our top city high schools would jump at the chance to provide tutoring to junior high and younger students. Imagine how good that would look on a college application! 

The current migrant crisis in the city is another challenge that is more of an attack on New York's Asian and Jewish citizens. Legal immigrants and their children who endured our daunting immigration process, made massive financial sacrifices to establish themselves in the city, and are trying to make the best of New York's already overburdened educational, economic, and transportation systems are now seeing thousands of migrants who may not have even wanted to come to New York stretching the city's and the state's finances and resources to the bone. Again this is also a threat to all New Yorkers, but to the more recent, legal AAPI arrivals from Asia and Jewish immigrants from the former USSR this is a bigger slap in the face. 

For those of you reading who cynically see this call for alliance between Jewish and APPI New Yorkers as some kind of "ganging up" on blacks and/or Latinos, I urge you to get your minds out of the racial victimhood game show mentality. Political power isn't about playing some kind of entitlement game with the idea that only the most oppressed minority can be the "winner" of the prizes. That's exactly the sick kind of thinking that has destroyed the Los Angeles City Council and we really don't need more of that kind of nonsense here. 

If you think New York City can never see any kind of racial harmony or common cause that includes more than one of two ethnicities, you're also badly mistaken. As crime spiked in the city in the 1980s and into the early 90s. New Yorkers of every race made it clear they had had it with this trend. Juries of all racial makeups in the city became notorious for not only voting for convictions and the strictest sentences for criminals, but they also showed understanding lenience for their fellow New Yorkers who had acted out against violent crime. The failure of any prosecutor to get a jury conviction of any kind for "Subway Shooter" Bernard Goetz in the 1980s was a prime example of this). Sure, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton deserve a lot of credit for reducing crime in the city. But it's important to understand that politicians never make any significant progress before a critical mass of the people decides it wants that progress first. 

The issues Jewish and AAPI New Yorkers should fight together for are no threat to blacks, Latinos, or any other ethnic group in New York or anywhere else. But things are likely to get worse for everyone unless they start working together very soon.