Antisemitic incidents in New York have risen year over year since the war in Gaza began with the invasion of southern Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.By Dion J. Pierre, The AlgemeinerThe New York City Police Department (NYPD) confirmed on Thursday that Jews were targeted by more hate crimes than any other racial, ethnic, or religious group during the first six months of 2026, deepening concerns among Jewish leaders that antisemitism has intensified during the opening months of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.The department recorded 178 anti-Jewish hate crimes from January to June, even as hate crimes against Asian, Black, and white New Yorkers—groups whose populations together outnumber the city’s Jews by nearly six to one—registered double-digit decreases and offenses related to ethnicity fell 50 percent.Anti-Muslim offenses also rose, from 14 during the same period in 2025 to 21 this year.The figures appeared in the NYPD’s biannual crime report. A statement from NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch accompanying the data did not address the rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes, focusing instead on the city’s broader public safety gains.“New York City’s public safety progress is the result of precision policing and the extraordinary work of the men and women of the NYPD,” Tisch said, citing “the fewest shooting incidents, shooting victims, and murders for the first half of any year in recorded history, along with major crime reductions across the city.”Overall crime has fallen to historic lows, with the Bronx — once notorious for its high crime rate — leading all five boroughs. Crime there dropped 12 percent.The picture for the city’s Jewish community, however, is starkly different.Antisemitic incidents in New York have risen year over year since the war in Gaza began with the invasion of southern Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, with some attacks targeting Jewish children and others singling out Orthodox Jews for violence because of their traditional dress.Recent cases illustrate the pattern. In the span of eight days between late October and early November 2024, three Hasidim, including children, were assaulted in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood — among them a 13-year-old boy struck while riding his bike to school.In March, a Jewish subway rider, Jeremy Garrett, was attacked by an assailant who knocked off his kippah.“I thought the window of the subway fell on me,” Garrett told a local ABC affiliate, adding that the assault was especially painful because it occurred just before the Purim holiday.Last month, a Jewish woman who had parked her car in Manhattan returned to find its tires slashed and a note on the windshield equating Jews with rodents, reading: “Zionist rats aren’t welcome anywhere but Antarctica or Hell.”Her brother later said that earlier the same day, someone had shouted “Free Palestine” at the pair. In May, meanwhile, a well-known food co-op in Brooklyn’s Park Slope section voted to boycott Israeli products.Some in the Jewish community allege that Mamdani has fostered the most anti-Zionist climate in the city’s history.On his first day in office, the mayor rescinded the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, lifted the ban on city contracts with companies boycotting Israel, and narrowed an executive order directing police to monitor anti-Israel protests near synagogues.Jewish groups have also warned of the financial consequences should the city divest its assets from Israel.A new report by the JLens investment network estimated that divestment would erase $37.55 billion from the city’s public pension funds over the next decade — losses that would be borne by government employees, including police officers, firefighters, and teachers.“While the debate around BDS often centers on moral and political arguments, this analysis highlights that there may also be material financial considerations,” the group said, referring to the so-called “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.The post New York City Jews most targeted minority group in 2026, NYPD report says appeared first on World Israel News.