Investigative Group

NYC Synagogue Vandalism Suspect Is Former City Hall Anti-Hate Crime Intern

Facebook/Public Photo

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Luke Rosiak Investigative Reporter
Font Size:
  • The suspect in a synagogue vandalism act that forced the cancellation of a Democratic event is reportedly a former City Hall employee who worked on anti-hate crime issues and is a Democratic activist, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. 
  • The New York Times and a Jewish couple helped the impoverished gay black man attend college where he studied African American studies, according to The Times. 
  • He resented New York liberals as patronizing, and railed against Israel and cultural appropriation, according to his Facebook profile. 
  • Before knowing his identity, politicians said the vandalism demonstrated why voting Democratic was needed and highlighted government programs to combat such incidents.

The suspect in the vandalism of a New York synagogue was a Democratic activist and former City Hall intern who worked on anti-hate crime issues, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

He is a “queer” black man informally adopted by a Jewish couple, and The New York Times’ charity, the Neediest Cases, helped pay for him to go to college where his focus was African American studies, according to a 2017 New York Times profile.

A political event with two Democratic candidates at the Union Temple of Brooklyn was canceled Friday after attendees found graffiti saying “Die Jew Rats” and “Hitler,” which one of the candidates said highlighted the need to vote out “hate.” Police arrested 26-year old James Polite later that night based on surveillance footage.

A year ago, The New York Times profiled Polite, noting that he was an LGBT foster youth who “could defy the statistics” after becoming the “adopted child of the Quinn administration,” as Christine Quinn, then the speaker of the New York city council, put it. “And it wasn’t just me. It was the entire City Council staff.”

James Polite / Facebook

James Polite / Facebook

In the 2017 profile, The New York Times said Polite, who requested to join the foster care system after his mother provided “unsanitary” conditions for him, “interned with Ms. Quinn, a Manhattan Democrat, for several years, working on initiatives to combat hate crime, sexual assault and domestic violence. He also took part in her re-election campaign in 2009 and returned to help with her unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2013.”

James Polite / Facebook

James Polite / Facebook

His Facebook profile, reviewed by TheDCNF, shows that on Nov. 1, a day before the synagogue vandalism, he posted “A dream with eyes wide open. civil war is here. Nobody gotta die. Mexico, latin America, carribean vs. Jew nigger pigs. One person touch me this whole shit a smoking.”

At 3:46 a.m. on Nov. 1, Polite posted a cell-phone picture of a burning American flag, with the caption “Sometimes things take a lil heat to grow.” Police suspect him of setting fires at “seven shuls and yeshivas in Williamsburg” that same night, before the temple vandalism. Security footage captured that, too.

The Facebook profile’s pictures and biographical information reveal that it is the same man in The New York Times’ profile. Its URL includes James Polite, but he changed his online name to Abraham Aali.

The Times profile said that the New York councilwoman helped Polite get into college:

Ms. Quinn wrote Mr. Polite a letter of recommendation to Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and followed up with a call to its president. Council staff members even drove him there on move-in day.

“We did everything that was stepping over the line,” Ms. Quinn said. “But I didn’t care. He had worked so hard all his life, and he needed a break.”

Mr. Polite said his experiences working with Ms. Quinn and on the presidential campaign changed his trajectory. Otherwise, he said, “I would probably have not gone to college.”

 

James Polite / Facebook

James Polite / Facebook

The Times’ charity, “The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, took over Mr. Polite’s case” as he aged out of the foster care system, and helped him attend Brandeis.

“Mr. Polite hopes to graduate in May with degrees in African-American studies and political science, and took two classes over the summer to stay on pace,” the profile said. “In June, Children’s Aid used $856 from the Neediest Cases Fund for school supplies and fees not covered by his financial aid package.”

On Facebook, he shared a paper hosted on Brandeis’ website from the Journal of Black Studies about “witchcraft, race and resistance in colonial New England,” highlighting how “Whites accused blacks of the crime of witchcraft in New England.”

The Times profile also pictured Polite next to a smiling couple, Joshua Waletzky and Jenny Levison. They “wanted to foster an ‘L.G.B.T.Q. youth’ on the brink of aging out of the system,” the Times wrote. “Although Mr. Polite was not legally adopted — his relationship with his biological parents has improved in recent years — Ms. Levison called it a ‘moral adoption.’ He says he considers the couple his second set of parents.” (RELATED: Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Suspect Appears In Court And Enters His Plea)

The Times issued a correction in the profile: “an earlier version of this article referred incompletely to the type of youth whom Josh Waletzky and Jenny Levison sought to foster. It was an “L.G.B.T.Q. youth” on the brink of aging out of the system, not merely a gay youth.”

But on Facebook, Polite mocked such “hipsters” as naive gentrifiers looking to feel good about themselves. In one post, at the bottom of which he named Waletzky and Levison, he wrote:

Yes, she is competing with the people of the Bubble which POC she can hire, it’s starting to look like white people take home six figures for their lifetime of sacrifices to POC. Yes, they know what you’re gonna say. As soon as they find a bubble safe token they’ll be sure to objectify him and brandish like that overpriced culturally appropriated drink.

They’re back at Hipster Manifest Density with new art. Something in Spanish featuring an indigenous who could have been the indigenous person who died on land with a view that they and their friends of the bubble would die for. A card identical to the one that arrived in their secluded section of the East Granolaville section of Eveywhitesuburb, USA. Bloods runs down like rain water that danced across clay.

The blood leaves it’s holder red handed as she clinches on to her paid subscription to I’ve done my part for these POC. They pull out translucent hand sanitizer to their macs which blood is dried by the heat of turbines cooling down minerals with blood. That goes unnoticed in corner office at the Race Pimp industrial complex.

Before it had been known that the suspect was a Democratic activist being paid by taxpayers to work on hate crime issues, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was asking the state’s Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate the incident, and pointed to “an additional $10 million grant program to help protect New York’s non-public schools and cultural centers, including religious-based institutions. The disgusting rhetoric and heinous violence in this nation has reached a fever pitch and is ripping at the fabric of America.”

And one of two Democratic New York candidates speaking at the event, Jim Gaughran, said:

What this incident highlighted is the need for a change in our current political climate. Hate, bigotry, and fear-mongering have become all too common in today’s society and that needs to change. This change won’t happen on its own, however. It is up to us! That’s why it is so important that every single person gets out and votes in Tuesday’s election so we can stop the spread of hate.

Quinn did not immediately return a request for comment.

In other Facebook posts, Polite rails against Israel and posts about Palestinian causes. On Oct. 11, he posted “apoligise for everything hurtful I posted that offended my friends. There is a way to reject zionism without being antisemetic.”

James Polite / Facebook

No one answered the phone at a number listed for Josh Waletzky.

The Times did not immediately answer TheDCNF’s request for comment.

Follow Luke on Twitter. Send tips to luke@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. PGP key.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel