MANHATTAN – On the heels of a number of disturbing antisemitic incidents— including one right here on the Upper East Side now under investigation by the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force— City Council Member Julie Menin is bringing together a who’s who of important and influential voices for a virtual town hall discussion on Wednesday focused on helping neighbors prevent and report bias crimes in our community.
Upper East Site was first to report on a Yorkville woman stunned and angered to find Nazi imagery stamped on one hundred dollar bills she had just received from an ATM inside a Chase bank near the corner of York Avenue and East 86th Street last January.
“I kept staring at it and saying this cannot be right,” Robyn Roth-Moise told Upper East Site just hours after taking the defaced cash out of the ATM.
“It was a slow motion shock and disbelief,” she said.
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On the backsides of four one hundred dollar bills she had received, all were stamped with symbols in blue ink— one of them was a swastika, another appeared to be a Nazi war eagle.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is now working that case.
Since taking office at the beginning of the year, Council Member Menin has been outspoken about acts of antisemitism in our neighborhood, our city and our country.
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Menin has previously told Upper East Site that “it is now more important than ever that we immediately call out hate speech and antisemitism in any form, as it cannot be tolerated.”
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In response to this disturbing incident in Yorkville and others across the New York City, Menin’s team is bringing together a panel of experts and officials to arm the public with the knowledge they need to report acts of hate.
Among those expected to join the virtual town hall discussion are:
- Senator Chuck Schumer
- NYC Council Member Eric Dinowitz, Jewish Caucus Chair
- Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright, NY District 76
- Michael Cohen, Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Inspector Jessica Corey, Commanding Officer of NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force
- Inspector Melissa Eger, Commanding Officer of NYPD 19th Precinct
- Rick Sawyer, Special Counsel on Hate Crimes at the Office of New York State Attorney General
- Jonah Boyarin, Jewish Community Liaison from the NYC Commission on Human Rights
- Alexander Rosemberg, Deputy Director of ADL New York/New Jersey Region
To watch the virtual town hall meeting Wednesday, February 9th at 7:00 pm, you must register in advance by clicking here.
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