New York state will distribute $70 million to 290 nonprofit community-based organizations that are “vulnerable to hate crimes and attacks due to their ideology, beliefs or mission,” the office of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told JNS exclusively on Monday.
“The Jewish community has been subjected to horrible, horrible acts of antisemitism,” Hochul told JNS outside Wasserman’s, a kosher supermarket, and one of three Jewish-owned businesses on Main Street in Kew Gardens Hills.
“It’s on the rise, and we have to do something about it,” the Democratic governor told JNS.
Hochul told JNS about the $70 million, which is to be distributed via the state’s Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes program, hours before she was slated to make a public announcement on Tuesday morning.
The funding is the largest distribution in the program’s history, the governor’s office told JNS. Earlier this year, the state said that up to $70 million was available for a new round of funding, and it would combine $35 million that was already available with another $35 million that Hochul included in her fiscal 2027 budget proposal.
The state’s criminal justice services division will administer the money, the governor’s office told JNS.
“It’s really important for me to support the community in many ways,” Hochul told JNS outside the supermarket, where she was given a holiday gift basket.
“Part of it is funding,” she said. “Show support by making sure there are resources to protect communities that are feeling vulnerable.”
The grants are available to religious organizations, houses of worship, community and civic centers, cultural institutions, daycare centers and other nonprofits “considered at risk because of their ideology, beliefs or mission,” the governor’s office told JNS.
Inside Wasserman’s, shoppers, Queens residents and state lawmakers trailed the governor through multiple aisles, as Hochul stopped to look at food ahead of the holiday.
Store staff set out a table for her with honey, new fruits and other traditional Rosh Hashanah foods. As she navigated the store, several people approached to thank her for her work with the Jewish community.
A woman said that she was concerned about what she said was the dangerous rhetoric of Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, who has accused Jewish state of “genocide” and who campainged on having the Israeli prime minister jailed.
Hochul nodded and said, “I understand.”
Outside the supermarket, a man told her that he had donated a kidney anonymously and thanked her for signing a “living donor support” program into state law in 2022. The program helps reimburse living organ donors for expenses associated with donation.
“Last night, I met my recipient, and he told me he would not be alive right now,” the man told Hochul. “Dialysis wouldn’t have worked for him. He’s 55 years old. He has five kids and an adopted kid.”
“I got to give my kidney to someone I don’t know. You gave me this check,” he said, holding a check up. “You’re the only governor who has a law like that.”
The governor smiled and took a picture with the man.
What’s best for them
Recipients of the new state funding can use the money for anything, including locks, alarms, panic buttons, fencing, shatter-resistant glass, cybersecurity improvements and security training. Organizations could seek up to $250,000.
“The Securing Communities grants allow entities to increase their security the way they know best for themselves,” Hochul told JNS outside Wasserman’s. “It’s not me telling them how to use it.”
“Some, it might be enhanced cameras. There might be having to bring in more people,” she said. “So there’s a whole variety of uses for it.”
“It’s a statement on my priorities, and my values and who I’m fighting for,” she told JNS.
Since Hochul took office five years ago, the state has distributed more than $201 million through the program for 2,035 projects, according to her office.
The new security measures come as Jews, who account for about 10% of New York City residents, were the targets of 42% of “confirmed” hate crimes in the city last month. Although that represented a decrease over the prior August, Jewish leaders told JNS that there is little comfort in some numbers decreasing slightly.
Jews have also been the targets of 53.9% of all “confirmed” hate crimes in the city so far this year, according to official New York City Police Department data. The NYPD describes “confirmed” hate crimes as those that it and its legal bureau determine to meet a threshold under state law.
Hochul told JNS on Monday that the state funding should not be viewed as a substitute for $87 million in federal counterterrorism funding that she has accused the Trump administration of withholding from New York.
“The federal government still owes us $87 million,” she said. “I’m not letting them off the hook.”
“They have to give that to the communities if they want to show that they’re trying to stop the next act of terrorism,” she told JNS. “Otherwise, they’re complicit.”
A spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, previously told JNS that Hochul is “manufacturing a funding crisis” and that the state is “sitting on more than $300 million in unspent federal homeland security funding.”
‘Comfort they deserve’
New York State Police will increase patrols around synagogues during the High Holidays, which begin on Sept. 11 at night, according to the governor’s office.
Hochul told JNS that she has spoken with “many rabbis” as the holidays approach.
“During the High Holidays, beginning this week, we’re going to be having increased State Police at all synagogues,” she told JNS. “You’ll see this across the state, in addition to the local law enforcement.”
“I have synagogues all over New York, and I want them to know I have patrols, and we are enforcing them, making sure we can deter any new threats,” Hochul said, “and giving people the sense of security and comfort they deserve.”
Troopers have begun talking to religious leaders and are coordinating with the NYPD, federal authorities, Anti-Defamation League, Community Security Initiative and Secure Community Network, according to the governor’s office.
Questions of Jewish security and the state’s relationship with the mayor followed Hochul during her visit to Kew Gardens Hills on Monday.
Susan Hod, who led Hochul through Kandy Kastle, a kosher candy store that she owns across the street from Wasserman’s, showed the governor old newspaper clippings of her late father Gavriel Davidov, who immigrated from Tajikistan to the United States with his family in 1976.
A prominent figure in Queens’s Bukharian Jewish community, Davidov helped establish synagogues, yeshivas and other communal institutions, and a Queens street corner has been named for him since 2023.
Hochul suggested that Hod should laminate the clippings to preserve them and told her that she hoped the business would succeed.
Then the conversation turned to the New York City mayor.
“You have to control Mr. Mamdani,” Hod told Hochul. “I know you endorsed him and all, but it’s not a good thing what he’s doing. Nobody’s happy about it.”
Hochul told Hod that she had only endorsed Mamdani once he was “very clearly going to be the mayor.”
Lynn Schulman, a member of the New York City Council, defended Hochul’s need to work with Mamdani. The governor spoke with the mayor about Jewish concerns, she said.
“I’ve had the conversations,” Hochul agreed.
When Hod suggested that the mayor could be charming, Hochul cut in.
“No one charms me,” she said, winking. “Don’t worry about it.”
Hochul’s final stop in the neighborhood was Max and Mina’s, a kosher ice cream shop which opened in 1997 and is owned by brothers Bruce and Mark Becker.
The shop is known for unusual flavors, including cholent, lox, wasabi, corn on the cob and Cheez-it. On Monday, its offerings included Mountain Dew, raspberry rugelach, and peanut butter and jelly.
The governor opted for fudge brownie.
