Nearly half of Jewish voters believe NY is unsafe for them: poll

 Nearly half of Jewish voters have felt at risk because of their religious identity while living in the Empire State — while more than a third said that New York is no longer a safe haven for their people, a shocking new poll reveals.

The survey conducted for the pro-Israel New York Solidarity Network found that 44% of the 1,200 Jewish voters in New York City and other counties queried said they have felt unsafe, as did 67% of identifiable Orthodox Jews.

More than a third — 35% — said they agreed with the statement: “New York is no longer a safe haven for Jewish life and the Jewish people.”

Nearly 40% of the same voters said the US is no longer a safe haven for Jews.

The numbers are unsettling given that 1.5 million Jews live in New York state — more than any single place on the globe outside of Israel, the poll takers said. 

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“That more than a third of registered New York Jewish voters believe New York is no longer a safe haven for Jews should be a five-alarm fire for state and local elected officials,” Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network and Treasurer of Solidarity PAC, said in a statement to The Post Wednesday. 

It comes as New York has been hit by a wave of antisemitic hate crimes since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

The hate has spilled onto college campuses, where some Jewish students have been left cowering in fear due to anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents — including at Cooper Union and at Columbia University, where vandals occupied an academic building.

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Nearly half of Jewish voters and two-thirds of orthodox Jews said they’ve felt unsafe because of their Jewish identity while living in New York.REUTERS

Many of the masked hoodlums escaped prosecution, and a campaign is now underway to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to restore a mask ban at public protests to prevent harassers and bigots from hiding their identify and getting away with crimes.

Half of those surveyed by the New York Solidarity Network said they don’t believe New York’s college campuses will do enough to make Jewish students feel safe in the upcoming fall semester, while 42% said they did.

Meanwhile, 86% of respondents said they believe that antisemitism is a serious problem, and 56% have witnessed anti-Jewish hatred on social media and online forums — including 72% of those under the age of 30.

Antisemitic hate crimes are up 45% in 2024, according to NYPD data obtained by The Post in April — with many of the emboldened attacks captured on shocking video.

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The survey conducted for the pro-Israel New York Solidarity Network found that 44% of the 1,200 Jewish voters in New York City and other counties queried said they have felt unsafe, as did 67% of identifiable Orthodox Jews.

For instance, the Brooklyn Museum’s director and a number of its Jewish board members last month were targeted by antisemitic vandals who tossed red paint and scrawled “blood on your hands” across their homes.

An inverted red triangle was sprayed on director Anne Pasternak’s co-op apartment building — a symbol used in the past by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets and, more recently, has been spotted at anti-Israel tent encampment protests that plagued university campuses across the country.

An anti-Jewish harasser from Staten Island was recently arrested for allegedly storming a Big Apple subway car and demanded that “Zionists” raise their hands.

A Jewish father of five in Brooklyn was beaten in front of his own home last December during the first night of Hanukkah as his attacker spewed antisemitic vitriol — just two days before another man was robbed of his $2,500 traditional Jewish headpiece in the borough.

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More than a third — 35% — said they agreed with the statement: “New York is no longer a safe haven for Jewish life and the Jewish people.”Paul Martinka

The virulent Jew hatred has exploded amid the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, initiated by the terror militia’s sneak attack on the Jewish State.

“Jews have been warning leadership for months, as masked mobs teeming with hatred for Jews crowded outside hospitals and synagogues, defaced the homes of Jewish museum board members, intimidated Jews on the subway and in other public spaces, vandalized Jewish-owned business, overran colleges to ‘occupy’ campuses— all while far-left politicians celebrated this behavior as ‘peaceful’ protest,” Forman said.

“If we do not feel safe here, with the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, how can we feel safe anywhere?” Forman added.

“Community leaders, non-Jewish allies, and elected officials on the state and local level must send a decisive message to the public, and to those elected officials who condone this behavior, that anti-Jewish hatred has no place in New York, without exception or apology.”  

The New York Solidarity Network survey conducted by GQR Insights and Action questioned 1,200 registered Jewish voters from May 9-22, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Live phone interviews made up 46% of respondents, while text-to-web surveys made up the other 54%.

Voters from high density Jewish zip codes were interviewed in New York City and select counties: Nassau, Suffolk, Albany, Broome, Erie, Monroe, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Tompkins, Ulster and Westchester.

https://nypost.com/2024/07/10/us-news/nearly-half-of-jewish-voters-believe-ny-is-unsafe-for-them-shocking-poll-finds/

Biden's False Promise To Young Voters

 In the lead-up to last month's presidential debate, pundits predicted that President Biden would lean into his standard defense of his former boss's signature healthcare legislation in a bid to attract young voters, whose lack of enthusiasm for the president has the White House worried.

It's safe to say that Team Biden now has even bigger worries than young voters, thanks to the incumbent's disastrous performance on the big stage.

But it's worth considering the Democrats' pitch that "Biden has a history of delivering expanded access to affordable health care," as his campaign's national youth engagement director Eve Levenson recently told POLITICO.

It's true that Obamacare gave young people a break by allowing them to stay on their parents' health plans until they turned 26. But its mandates and regulations have driven the cost of coverage up for Americans young and old. Worse still, the Biden administration's lavish spending on health insurance subsidies — expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act to be even more generous through December 31, 2025 — doesn't offer much benefit to young Americans. But it does increase their tax bills.

Fifty-nine percent of voters ages 18 to 29 ranked healthcare as one of their top issues, according to an April poll from the Institute of Politics at Harvard.

Obamacare's proponents argue that they're speaking to young voters' concerns with provisions like the law's requirement that health plans cover 10 essential health benefits and sell to all comers, without considering health status or history when setting premiums.

But those mandates come with a price. They're one reason why average individual market premiums have grown from $232 in 2013, before Obamacare took effect, to $477 for a benchmark plan this year. And they're why exchange plans often feature budget-busting deductibles and cost-sharing.

And because Obamacare bans insurance companies from selling less comprehensive plans, young, healthy Americans do not have the option to pay less for more basic coverage that fits their needs.

Today, most Americans can only afford Obamacare plans because of the billions of dollars in subsidies lawmakers have put on the taxpayers' credit card since the law took effect.

If you need to spend billions to make a law called the Affordable Care Act affordable, you're probably doing something wrong.

But it's particularly bad for young, working Americans, for whom Obamacare coverage may not be worth it, even with the aid of subsidies. A couple in their twenties with one child and a combined income of $104,000 a year, for example, has its premium for a mid-level silver plan capped at 8.5% of income, thanks to Biden's enhanced subsidies. That translates to roughly $8,840 — more than $736 a month.

If they live in northern Virginia, the cheapest plan available is just under $450 a month — and it features a narrow provider network and an $18,000 deductible before the plan provides any financial assistance.

If our hypothetical family bumps up its premium to just under $530 a month, it's looking at a narrow network, a deductible north of $14,000, and a $45 primary care copay.

Up until this year, young people had at least one way to escape Obamacare. Short-term, limited-duration insurance plans do not have to cover all of Obamacare's "essential health benefits." So insurers can tailor them to beneficiaries' needs, generally at a lower monthly cost. In 2019, some 3 million Americans enrolled in these plans, which lasted up to 364 days and could be renewed by insurers for up to three years.

But this past March, the Biden administration issued a rule limiting short-term insurance plans to just 90 days, with the possibility of a one-month renewal. Some states had already effectively banned them. The White House boasted that the rule would "Protect Americans from Junk Health Insurance."

Never mind that short-term plans offer similar benefits to, and cover a greater share of healthcare costs, than comparable Obamacare plans, while giving patients access to broader physician networks, according to a seminal study on the topic by the Manhattan Institute's Chris Pope.

Biden may pitch himself as the candidate who will bring affordable health care to young Americans. But his record shows that, time and again, he's worked to do the opposite. Voters would be wise to take note.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2024/07/08/joe-bidens-false-promise-to-young-voters/