Panel at Young Israel G.N. tackles antisemitism

Continued from Page 2 she said, is one of the ways New York and more than half of the U.S. needs to improve to efectively combat antisemitism.

“What I would like to do is have a country-wide scoring system for [Holocaust education},” Bolender said. “As of right now, the only state in this entire country that has maybe an A- is New Jersey.”

Bolender said 30 states in the country do not have any requirements to have Holocaust instruction in their school systems. Long Island, she said, is the fourth-largest Jewish community in the country, yet has a high level of Holocaust illiteracy.

Ryder expounded on what Nassau Police have done and will con- tinue to do to fght antisemitism in the county.

“Nobody in this county is more threatened than the Jewish community,” Ryder said. “Nobody needs more than the Jewish community.”

Ryder also said he believes a lot of the antisemitic incidents that occur throughout Nassau are unreported. Though antisemitism is not on the rise locally, he said, it is on the rise nationally. Social media, Ryder said, plays a large role in the ways people today can spread hate so easily.

“We have individuals in the police department that use social media all day long,” Ryder said. “They get on undercover accounts and they do exactly what the neo-Nazi, white supremacist groups do. They stoke the public to try and fnd something out and we monitor those sites.” Parental engagement and reporting anything suspicious to the police, Ryder said, are ways to best combat antisemitism in 2023. Pilip echoed Ryder’s advice and urged the public to call the police and not be afraid of what may happen afterward.

Continued from Page 2 fnd an Instagram account that is believed to belong to Gerwatowski, which has since been deleted but was still active on Jan. 6. Multiple tipsters also identified Gerwatowski, saying he shared the fact he entered the Capitol and gave authorities his phone number, the FBI said.

One of the Capitol officers that day told the FBI he made a “tactical decision” not to engage Gerwatowski and other rioters.

“The officer told the FBI that he was exhausted, outnumbered, and had already been attacked and sprayed with several chemicals by rioters earlier in the day,” according to a criminal complaint.

More than 999 people from nearly every state have been arrested for various crimes related to the Jan. 6 riots a the Capitol Building, officials said.

In October, Nassau attorney and former East Williston school board trustee John O’Kelly was arrested for his actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to the federal prosecutors.

O’Kelly, 66, is charged with felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers and interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder, along with related misdemeanor offenses, officials said.