NYC Hearing Erupts Over ‘Zionist’ Slur — Hate Crime or Not? • Jewish Breaking News

A hearing on antisemitism at the New York City Council Wednesday turned fiery as officials pushed back against the refusal of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office to Combat Antisemitism to define antisemitism and the NYPD’s claim that “kill the Zionists” is not necessarily an antisemitic slogan.

Julie Menin, speaker of the City Council, established a separate task force to fight antisemitism, and Phylisa Wisdom, head of Mamdani’s task force, was called to testify before the City Council.

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Democrat Eric Dinowitz of the Bronx and Republican Inna Vernikov of Brooklyn co-chaired the hearing.

When asked about the scrapping of the IHRA definition adopted by executive order in the previous administration, Wisdom said, “We don’t believe there needs to be a codified definition. The policy of this administration is we will continue to not have any codified definition of any form of hate.”

“Bias and hate, it’s really sticky and extremely serious stuff, and it’s case by case,” she added.

Wisdom explained that her task force will perceive antisemitism simply as “prejudice, violence and discrimination against Jews because they are Jewish.”

Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jewish councilmember, stalked out of the meeting in a fury.

“That’s crazy, unconscionable,” he fumed. “In the history of New York City, there was never a problem figuring out what hate is. We will have to define each time whether an incident was hateful or not?”

What happened next was even more outrageous.

The discussion turned to the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and Dinowitz raised a hypothetical question: If a targeted Jewish restaurant is sprayed with the words “Kill the Zionists,” is that a hate crime?

Michael Gerber, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of legal matters, hedged.

“It’s going to depend,” he said, adding that an investigation would determine the exact motive. “If it wasn’t pure political motivation,” Gerber said, “we have to be able to prove that.”

On the other hand, Gerber said it would be absolutely clear if the graffiti said, “Kill the Jews.”

“That’s a hate crime right there,” he said. “That is clearly because of a perceived Jewish identity.”

Dinowitz pushed back, saying that people use the word “Zionist” when they mean “Jew.”

“We’ve seen time and time again the word ‘Zionist’ is used as a proxy for ‘Jew,’” Dinowitz said. “There should be no question that those would be hate crimes, and I think what you’ve delivered is sort of the ‘out.’ If you just use the word ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew,’ then you might be okay.”

Gerber rejected the argument, out of a belief that Zionism is tied to one’s political beliefs rather than identity.

“We have to follow the law, and the law does distinguish between crimes because of one’s religious identity and ones because of political viewpoints,” Gerber said.

But Dinowitz nailed a crucial point: Jew haters can get away with hate crimes if they’re careful to use the word “Zionist” instead of “Jew.”