Hate crime reports soared in the Big Apple last month, largely driven by a giant leap in anti-Jewish offenses, compared to October of 2022, according to NYPD statistics released Wednesday.
The city saw a whopping 214% surge in anti-Jewish incidents last month, amid the Israel-Hamas war which began on Oct. 7 when the terrorist group launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state, killing 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Over October, 69 crimes targeting Jewish victims were reported, compared to just 22 during the same month last year, the latest data shows.
The spike fueled a 124% leap in hate crimes overall, with 101 bias incidents reported last month, compared to 45 in October 2022, according to the NYPD, which said its Hate Crime Task Force was investigating.
While there were no anti-Muslim incidents tallied in October of 2022, there were eight reported last month, the statistics show.
Year-to-date, however, hate crime reports overall were down 9%, with 485 tallied through the end of October, compared to 531 during the same period last year, the data shows.
The latest numbers come after NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny noted last month that hate crimes had been on the rise since the conflict raging in the Middle East.
“Hate crime is still down, but since the incident in Gaza, there’s been an uptick,” he told reporters, noting that the city was still seeing a decline year-to-date.
The majority of the recent antisemitic acts have been related to graffiti, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment, “basically almost bordering on free speech where people are yelling back and forth at each other until it takes a weird turn,” Kenny said.
A small amount of assaults have been reported, he added.
