A day after Yom Hashoah, the annual remembrance of the Holocaust, a New York lawmaker issued a proclamation declaring April 29 “End Jew Hatred Day.” The move came amid ongoing anti-Semitic attacks in the Empire State.
State Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick presented the proclamation at the Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education in Rockland County, N.Y., near the center of the large Orthodox community there.
“We all know Jew-hatred didn’t end when the Holocaust did,” he said. “New York State has recently experienced an alarming increase in Jew-hatred crimes … it’s a tragedy that New York leads the nation in anti-Semitic incidents.”
He noted that anti-Semitic incidents doubled in Rockland County from 2020 to 2021. New York State recorded more than 415 such incidents in 2021—up from nearly 340 in 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project, called the event “a momentous occasion.”
“Despite centuries of genocidal persecution and pogroms, the Jewish people have never stopped honoring and celebrating our traditions, heritage and faith,” she said, “and we have never given up on the dream of finally ending Jew hatred in our generation.”