Openly gay N.Y. state senator targeted with anti-Semitic literature
Anti-Semitic pamphlet arrives just days after Brad Hoylman's apartment was vandalized with swastikas
It’s looking like it’s been a bad couple of weeks for New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan). The openly gay Democrat has once again been targeted for harassment, this time with anti-Semitic literature, reports The New York Daily News.
Just days after Hoylman’s apartment building was vandalized with two swastikas carved into the elevator door, the senator claims he’s received an anti-Semitic leaflet at his home titled “The Prophetic Judgment of Judaism and All False Religions and Orders.”
The leaflet shows a black-hooded figure, labeled as “God’s Wrath,” taking a sword and cutting through the word “Coexist” written in the symbols of various world religions, including Judaism and Islam.
“False religious orders must perish…That goes for Judaism,” the leaflet reads.
“I’d be lying to say I wasn’t concerned about it, and I’m not alone,” said Hoylman, who lives with his partner, who is Jewish, and his partner’s daughter. Hoylman regularly attends synagogue, but has never officially converted to Judaism.
“I wear this as a badge of honor that the person assumed I’m Jewish,” Hoylman added. “This is part of a trendline I think every fair-minded American should be concerned about.”
The Daily News has identified the sender of the pamphlet as Brian Clayton Charles of Tucson, Ariz. According to Etzion Neuer of the Anti-Defamation League, Charles has sent the same literature to Jewish institutions in Florida, Texas and California.
“It’s not terribly surprising the senator was targeted,” says Neuer. “He has been a leading voice on progressive issues, and unfortunately, that can make that person a target for extremists.”
The two separate incidents targeting Hoylman are part of what New York Police Department officials are calling a spike in hate crimes following this year’s election. The department claims that hate crimes have risen nearly 37 percent, from 253 incidents from January to November 2015 to 345 as of Monday. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill says that just in the span of 13 days since the election, there were 28 hate crimes in the city, compared with six during the same period in 2015.
But New York City is not alone. Reports of other hate crimes have been reported across the country in the wake of a Donald Trump presidential victory. Some of the hate crimes appear to target people’s religion, race or ethnicity, and some even target people’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In one such incident, a gay man in Florida was assaulted, with the attacker telling him: “My new president says we can kill all you faggots now.”
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