New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin has secured $750,000 in funding for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Hate Crimes Bureau after months of pressure from the City Council’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which argued the office lacked the resources needed to respond to a sharp rise in bias crimes.

The funding follows testimony by Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez at an April hearing, where he revealed that his Hate Crimes Bureau had received just $50,000 in city funding under the previous administration—far less than the more than $1 million allocated to similar units in other boroughs. Gonzalez had requested $1.5 million to bring Brooklyn’s unit closer to the funding levels in Manhattan and Queens.

Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who co-chairs the antisemitism task force, was among the leading advocates for the increase. She argued that the city had prioritized funding elsewhere while Brooklyn’s prosecutors lacked the resources to investigate and prosecute hate crimes during a period of escalating antisemitic violence.

Vernikov also criticized the city’s spending priorities, noting that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration identified $200 million for BHRAGS, while Brooklyn’s Hate Crimes Bureau remained significantly underfunded. She pointed to the recent stabbing attack that injured both an Asian American man and a frum Jewish man on Manhattan’s Upper West Side as another reminder of the growing threat posed by hate crimes.

According to NYPD data, reported hate crimes have risen sharply in recent years, with antisemitic incidents consistently making up the majority of bias-related offenses across the city.

Gonzalez said the new funding will allow his office to hire additional staff, expand specialized hate crime training, strengthen outreach to vulnerable communities, and improve support services for victims while working to prevent future attacks.

As antisemitism and hate-fueled violence continue to rise, we must turn down the temperature and stand united against every act of hate targeting Jewish New Yorkers, AAPI New Yorkers, and every community.

We will never allow hate to become normalized in our city. pic.twitter.com/LDJdByNxrM

— Speaker Julie Menin (@SpeakerMenin) July 24, 2026