New York Governor Andrew Cuomo compared the proliferation of hate crimes to the spread of the coronavirus on Sunday in response to a bomb threat that shut down the Albany Jewish Community Center, the Insider reported.
"People are worried about the Coronavirus, which we're watching in this state – there's also a virus of hate, and it's spreading and it's spreading quickly,” Cumo said in Albany. “And unfortunately, this state has also been infected, as hard as that is to believe, because New York, we're all about diversity, right?"
He added that "these types of situations are so ugly and so unfortunate. What's worse is we're seeing more and more of them. We've had about 42 incidents of anti-Semitism in this state this past couple of months so it's not getting better. It's only getting worse."
Cuomo, who was in Albany to offer his support and condemn the JCC incident, stressed that "it is not just anti-Semitism. There is a contagion of hate all across this country. The number of anti-African American attacks is up, the number of KKK groups and activity is up. The number of incidents against the LGBTQ community are up, so it's a virus all across this nation."
Law enforcement officers conducted a thorough search of the JCC building on Sunday and the day care center next to it and determined that there was no threatening device there after an email containing a bomb threat was sent to someone connected to the center earlier in the day, ABC News 10 reported.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.