Borough President Eric Adams along with Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt announced a joint initiative today that will provide $250k in funding to the No Place for Hate program in Brooklyn’s K-12 schools. This funding will help the program to double in size and reach over ten thousand students.
The announcement comes in response to the dramatic spike in anti-Semitic violence and hate crimes in the city in recent years, and the funding will be targeted towards schools in Williamsburg and Crown Heights – areas with significant Jewish populations.
ADL CEO Greenblatt expressed alarm that instances of hate crimes haven’t been going down. This year alone Brooklyn has seen 111 confirmed incidents of anti-Semitic crimes that Greenblatt described as increasing in their “severity, frequency, aggressiveness, and physicality.”
The ADL believes that the best way to curb this disturbing trend is through reaching out to younger members of the community through No Place for Hate. “To stop hate, we have got to change hearts and minds. That is why it is so important to focus on children – so we can inoculate the next generation out of intolerance,” Greenblatt said.
Adams stated that when children use symbols of hate or hate speech, it is important to remember they are learned behaviors. “The only way we can counterbalance the education of hate is to have institutions reversing that hate inside our educational systems,” Adams explained.
Rabbi Eli Cohen, a resident of Crown Heights, says that when hate crimes occur the most important thing is for people to treat them seriously. He thanked the elected officials at the event and the NYPD for their willingness to step forward and make statements condemning hate crimes when they occur, and coming up with real-world solutions to fight them.
Rabbi Eli Cohen concluded, “It’s a great response at all levels, the community is together, and I think that we will be able to reach and change the hearts of our young people through this initiative.”
