A former official of the Obama administration was arrested on Wednesday after videos of him ranting at a halal food cart vendor in the Upper East Side went viral on social media.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, was charged with hate crime, stalking, and aggravated harassment. He worked as a State Department official and National Security Council adviser under former President Barack Obama.
His arrest followed the surfacing of videos on social media showing him mocking a halal food cart vendor. In the video, Mr. Seldowitz said, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough.”
Seldowitz Criticized For His ‘Vile’ Actions
Gotham Government Relations, a New York-based lobbying firm where Mr. Seldowitz served as a foreign affairs chair, said that it had “ended all affiliation” with Mr. Seldowitz due to his “vile” actions in the viral video.
“The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm,” it added.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams also denounced Mr. Seldowitz’s actions, stating on X (formerly known as Twitter) that his “vile, disrespectful rhetoric has no home in our city.”
In New York City, which is home to more Jews than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has jumped since the Israel–Hamas war broke out, the city’s police department said.
Over the past month, some 69 “bias incidents” in New York City were referred to as “anti-Jewish” by the police, compared to 22 incidents in the same month last year.
“We’ve not seen this level of hate crimes and fear since Sept. 12, 2001,” she told reporters. “It’s painful to see the cruelty with which New Yorkers are treating each other.”
The state will be spending $75 million to address this issue, Ms. Hochul said, including $50 million for local law enforcement to “beef up their efforts,” as well as $25 million in security grants.
This funding, according to the governor, will allow State Police officers who have been “embedded with local law enforcement” to expand their efforts in monitoring “what’s being said on social media platforms.”
“Our social media analysis unit has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence, direct threats to others,” she said.
In the meantime, State Police troopers have been deployed to places that “could be susceptible to hate crimes or violence,” particularly synagogues, yeshivas, and mosques.
The governor also said an additional $2.5 million will be allocated for at least 10 State Police investigators to work with an FBI counterterrorism task force.
