On Thursday, March 27, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined We Are All Brooklyn, a coalition of 60 agencies brought together to solve quality of life issues in Brooklyn, at a Borough Hall press conference designed to increase public awareness of the alarming increase in hate crimes and bias incidences throughout the city.

“A crime against one is a crime against us all,” said BP Markowitz. “Brooklyn’s greatness is founded in its diversity and the fact that we are proud home to everyone from everywhere. That is why people from many different backgrounds and religious affiliations gathered here today—to remind us that we are all members of the same human family.”

BP Markowitz was joined by Special Assistant to the Borough President Yvonne Graham; City Council Member John Liu; Mohammed Razvi, Co-Founder of We Are All Brooklyn and Executive Director of Council of People’s Organization; Assistant Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Uria Ohana, the victim of last week’s hate crime outside a Brooklyn subway; Wing Chuen Lui, the father of a victim of a recent hate crime in a Brooklyn public school; Devorah Halberstam, whose 16-year-old son Ari was fatally shot on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994; Fred Kreizman, Assistant Commissioner, Community Affairs Unit of the Mayor’s Office; City Council Member Letitia James; City Council Member Bill deBlasio; and City Council Member David Weprin.

The gathering also highlighted upcoming programs that will focus on increasing awareness about hate crimes and steps that can be taken to prevent them, including palm cards with information about where hate crimes can be reported and agencies with resources available for victims of hate crimes. The palm cards will be available in eight languages.

Also announced was Stepping Up: A Community Conference to Prevent Hate Crimes scheduled for April 9. The event will take place at the Brooklyn College Conference Center and is sponsored by We Are All Brooklyn, the Center for Study of Brooklyn, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York/CAUSE-NY. More information can be found on the We Are All Brooklyn website at www.waab.org. 

Youth leaders from YouthBridge-NY, a teen leadership and diversity training program, announced their upcoming Youth Summit taking place on May 28 at The McGraw-Hill Companies. The Youth Summit will focus on education regarding hate crimes. Additional information can be found on the YouthBridge-NY website at www.youthbridgeny.org.