Her office has a plan for dealing with this surge of anti-Jewish hate, but it may take some time to implement
D
eborah Lauter has been battling hate and helping preserve the memory of the Holocaust for the last three decades. On Tuesday, she took office as executive director of the newly created Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, an agency that will serve as the coordinating body for New York City agencies that fight hate.
Her appointment comes amid the steepest rise in hate crimes in over a generation, especially against Jews. Anti-Semitic attacks — including physical assaults, anti-Jewish graffiti, and drive-by taunts — are up 63% through September 1, with 152 incidents compared to 93 at this time last year.
Lauter told Mishpacha that her office has a plan for dealing with this surge of anti-Jewish hate, but it may take some time to implement.
“It’s incredibly distressing that people have that sense [of fear walking alone in certain neighborhoods],” Lauter said in her first interview with an Orthodox media outlet. “That’s one of our big challenges, how do you interrupt bias-motivated violence? What is in these teenagers’ or young adults’ DNA that made them act out? Is it a lack of empathy? Do they not understand the quote-unquote ‘other,’ or people who are not familiar to them? What is it that is making them stereotype or hate?”
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