NYC Against Hate is where communities come together to protect each other and fight identity-based violence.
NYC Against Hate is a diverse coalition of community-based organizations working across identities to make New York safer for our communities. Convened by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP), NYC Against Hate includes AAPI, Jewish, Arab-American, Muslim, LGBTQ, and Black and Brown New Yorkers, uniting to create safety for our communities and to build a stronger New York City. We believe that we can’t arrest our way out of bigotry — the only effective solution to hate violence and bias incidents is held in our communities, not in more policing and prosecution.
Watch a video about our hate violence prevention canvasses:
After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, our partners at DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving) launched the Hate Free Zones initiative. We proudly joined the effort to protect Muslim and immigrant New Yorkers from Islamophobia, xenophobia, state violence and hate violence. Today, the NYC Against Hate coalition carries on in the spirit of this groundbreaking work.
From 2016 through 2019, we and our partners hosted Hate Free Zones town halls and bystander intervention trainings including Cop Watch and ICE Watch trainings, with the goal of organizing the Jewish community in each neighborhood to intervene in instances of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim violence and street harassment.
In 2017 and 2018, JFREJ members served as community safety marshals at our Muslim cousins' Iftar in the Streets events. After the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, when JFREJ hosted a Havdallah vigil in Union Square and a Solidarity Shabbat in Jackson Heights, Queens, many of these same partners, hailing from South Asian, Latino/a/x, and Filipino/a/x communities, with signs in Urdu, Bangla, Spanish, and Tagalog, created a protective circle around us as we performed our rituals of mourning.
These moments of empathy and solidarity represented everything we’ve been building together — a community protection system where we know our neighbors and we all rise together when needed.
