A New York City Police Department officer was hospitalized with a leg injury after anti-Israel protesters tried to remove barriers outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, where a pro-Israel event was taking place on Tuesday evening.
“During the course of the demonstration, individuals attempted to remove barriers. As a result, an officer sustained an injury to his leg and was transported to a local hospital for treatment,” an NYPD spokesman told JNS. “Also, water was thrown on officers from a building on the demonstration route.”
The NYPD spokesman told JNS that there were no arrests during the demonstration, which lasted about three and a half hours.
Community Security Services, a nonprofit that protects Jewish communities, told JNS that it had a dozen volunteers and two vehicles near the synagogue, which was the site of a protest on Nov. 19, when anti-Israel demonstrators blocked people from entering and exiting the synagogue. That protest was one of the factors that motivated city legislators to introduce a bill, now a law, calling on the NYPD to make a plan for a protest-free “buffer zone” around houses of worship.
“This time, everyone entered and left safely,” CSS stated.
In footage from the protest, demonstrators can be seen lifting barriers as police officers try to keep the barricades in place. Protesters chant, “NYPD, KKK, IOF, they’re all the same.” (IOF refers to Israeli forces as the “occupation.”)
Hezbollah flags can also be seen in footage. “How is it OK to wave terrorist flags in front of a Jewish daycare?” stated Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department’s task force on Jew-hatred.
“What would have happened if these Jihadist terrorist supporters were able to get inside?” he wrote. “They support the murder of all Jews! The Jewish community should not live in constant fear! Don’t think your community won’t be next.”
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, wrote that the protest was “disturbing” and that the department’s civil rights division “will investigate.”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) noted silence from fellow Democrats.
“Mob of pro-Hezbollah, Hamas s***heads raging against law enforcement and terrorizing the New York City Jewish community near a synagogue and day care,” he wrote. “Where’s my party’s condemnation?”
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, stated that the NYPD and its commissioner Jessica Tisch “did an extraordinary job ensuring worshipers could safely enter and leave” the synagogue.
“We are grateful for their preparedness and leadership, particularly under very challenging circumstances,” he stated.
At a Wednesday press conference, Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, said that “we in this city believe in the sacrosanct nature of the right to protest” and “are committed to ensuring that any New Yorker can safely enter or exit from a house of worship.”
“I do believe that the police ensured that yesterday evening,” the mayor said.
“There is no tolerance for hatred of Jewish New Yorkers, which we have seen time and time again, whether it be in the graffiti-ing of swastikas on a number of homes across Queens recently,” the mayor said at the press conference. “I’ve also been clear to New Yorkers, my honest opinions about the fact that when we have a real estate expo that is promoting the sale of land, which includes the sale of land in occupied West Bank in settlements that are a violation of international law, that that is something that I firmly disagree with.”
“I also believe that many New Yorkers firmly disagree with it, because it has been at the heart of an ongoing effort to displace Palestinians from their homes,” the mayor said.
Mamdani has long said that he would have the Israeli prime minister arrested in the city, and his spokeswoman said last year, after the November protest outside Park East Synagogue, that synagogues that host pro-Israel events violate international law.
The mayor was asked if his views on Israel and his statement agreeing with the protesters before the demonstration fuel Jew-hatred in the city.
“I think that critique of the policies of a government are very much separate from bigotry towards the people of a specific religious faith, and there is no tolerance for antisemitism,” Mamdani said.
Protest organizer PAL-AWDA responded to the mayor.
“NYPD set up frozen zones 300 feet away,” the group stated. “Protesters were kettled, beat and pepper sprayed to help facilitate a real estate event you claim to oppose. The Strategic Response Group, who you promised to disband, drove motorbikes into protesters. Tell us how you are preserving New Yorkers’ right to protest.”
