The New York City Commission on Human Rights launched a new ad campaign focused on reassuring the Jewish community that it is committed to combating anti-Semitism, reported the Jewish Insider.
The advertisements are slated to run in several Chassidic and Orthodox Jewish print publications and online. They feature images of individual New Yorkers, including two women, a person of color and a Chassidic man, along with the message “Jewish New Yorkers belong here. Anti-Semitism does not.”
Information will also be provided on how to report instances of harassment and discrimination to the commission.
“We will lift up and celebrate the diversity of Jewish communities, work to build a foundation of compassion and understanding between neighbors, and remain engaged in these communities to foster trust and healing,” Carmelyn Malalis, the commission’s chair, said in a statement.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, one of the commissioners and rabbi of New York City’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, told Jewish Insider that it was important to represent “a wide range of Jews” in the advertisements.
She said, “The campaign did really careful thinking about the images and about language and different ways of saying it.”
Kleinbaum added that the message of the campaign is “to say that this city cares about us being here safely and to make a statement to other New Yorkers, that we don’t all look, sound or present the same, but are an important part of the fabric of this city.”
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, said about the commission’s new campaign: “In frightening times like these, it is reassuring to know that the governmental entity charged with protecting our most basic freedoms is focusing special attention on the cancer of Jew-hatred.”
