As the world approaches the one-year anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, acts of hate and violence against Jewish New Yorkers are still surging.
When the terror group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — killing 1,200 people and abducting more than 250 others — it incited a devastating war that has left thousands of Palestinians dead as Israel hostages remain captive, with many having been killed. The attacks also spurred a wave of antisemitic hatred around the world — from vandalism at businesses to threats made against college students on campus to missing persons posters of the Israel hostages being ripped down in public.
But Brooke Goldstein, a civil rights attorney, is not giving up and feels more needs to be done to protect Jewish people in New York and across the world.
As the founder and executive director of The Lawfare Project, a legal defense team that protects the civil and human rights of Jewish people, she mobilized the #EndJewHatred in 2021, a movement that is going strong today to combat the rising incidents of hate against Jews.
A grassroots movement whose time had come
It is a movement that Goldstein said has always been needed, adding that anti-Jewish attacks are indeed anti-American attacks.
“If you look at history, Jew hatred has always come and gone, up and down, it ebbs and flows,” she said, adding that Jew hatred is taught, whether through miseducation or indoctrination.
#EndJewHatred is a grassroots movement, Goldstein explained, that encourages individuals and communities to fight hate by holding solidarity rallies, creating petitions and taking other action to advocate for change in their communities.
“#EndJewHatred is really the first-ever Jewish civil rights movement in America, which I actually found shocking,” Goldstein said. “It was the product of a study that we funded and launched when we were seeing the rise, tactics and strategies of the Black Lives Matter and other movements that garnered public support.”
She questioned why it was still “socially acceptable” to engage in discrimination against Jewish people, and studied historic social movements from the 1950s, including women’s rights, civil rights and LGBTQ movements, to garner the same equality for Jews.
“What we found is that through grassroots mobilization, the unification of the community around civil rights issues is important– the retraining of what’s happening to the Jewish community as a civil rights issue, not a political issue,” she said.
Goldstein added that whether a Jewish person is “pro-Israel” or not is irrelevant when it comes to ending bias and discrimination.
“They have to reframe their advocacy. Obviously, being pro-Israel is great, but our job is not to go around and convince everybody to love a foreign country,” she said. “It’s not the job of a Jewish kid on campus to make the case for Israel. But it is their job and responsibility to stand up for themselves.”
The concept of #EndJewHatred is to organize the Jewish community and provide them with funding, strategic advice and pro bono legal support. In fact, the Lawfare Project has provided services to clients who faced antisemitic discrimination after the start of the Israel-Hamas War last year.
In April, the Lawfare Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 Jewish students against NYC’s Cooper Union, alleging the school failed to address the surge in antisemitism on campus. At one point, the suit claims, a mob of anti-Israel demonstrators called for the annihilation of Israel and its people. Frightened Jewish students locked themselves in a school library for protection, as the demonstrators shouted antisemitic slogans while pounding on the glass wall and trying to force open the doors, the suit says.
NYPD: Hate crimes surged in August
Meanwhile, hate crimes are still soaring throughout the city. The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force reported that potential bias incidents continued to rise in August, with police taking on 30 more cases than in August 2023 (57 vs. 27).
According to the department, 17 of those incidents were anti-Muslim in motivation. But year to date, cops are probing 106 additional cases compared to 2023 (438 vs. 332), largely fueled by this year’s surge in anti-Jewish incidents.
Fundraising for a cause
Goldstein held a successful event in The Hamptons, hosted by Tanya Zuckerbrot, on July 11 to raise money for Lawfare Project’s pro bono legal work and spread awareness about the #EndJewHatred mission.
“We had an incredible event,” she said. “We had an amazing lineup of guests. We had Debra Messing come.”
The attendees were a diverse group from “all sides of the political spectrum,” Goldstein added.
Nearly $500,000 was raised to support the Lawfare Project’s work.
To learn more about the #EndJewHatred, visit endjewhatred.com.
