There was a time when surrounding a synagogue while chanting for the death of Jews and Israelis would have been recognized instantly for what it is: antisemitic intimidation.
In recent days, New York City has again witnessed demonstrations targeting Jewish synagogues and homes under the banner of political activism tied to Israel and the war in Gaza. On this occasion, the protests targeted an Israeli real-estate exposition said to have been scheduled to be held at the Park East Synagogue.
Criticism of Israel and peaceful protests are legitimate. Anger over war, civilian deaths, and government policy is also legitimate in any democratic society, including Israel’s own deeply divided and war-torn society.
But in New York and elsewhere in the Diaspora, the targeting of Jewish communal and religious spaces under the guise of political activism has again crossed the line, erasing distinctions and forcing Jews around the world into a conflict they are accused of embodying solely due to their identities.
The Park East Synagogue is not the Israeli embassy, and a Jewish family’s home in Queens is not an IDF command center. Yet, Jews from all walks of life, many of whom hold a wide variety of opinions about Israel itself, are increasingly made to feel collectively accused and targeted.
Jewish people are, sadly, all too familiar with intimidation.
According to reporting by The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Starr, one activist filmed herself harassing a woman carrying an Israeli flag, calling her a “rapist,” while another man was labeled a “sociopath.” A Hezbollah flag was also visible among a sea of Palestinian flags flown at the protest.
The group behind the demonstrations, Palestinian Assembly for Liberation Al-Awda in New York City and New Jersey (PAL-Awda NY/NJ), is the same one that organized anti-Israel protests targeting the Park East Synagogue in November. At those demonstrations, protesters openly chanted calls for violence, including “Death to the IDF,” “Resistance, you make us proud; take another settler out,” and “Intifada revolution.”
PAL-Awda argued that the event was advertising settlements in the disputed territories, which was ostensibly a violation of local, federal, and international law.
Zohran Mamdani, who was mayor-elect at the time, failed to clearly condemn the targeting of Jewish synagogues in the city. While he “discouraged” some of the rhetoric used at the demonstrations, he also defended the decision to protest outside the synagogue, arguing that “sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
This time around, the chants grew even more explicit, with demonstrators calling for “only one solution – Intifada revolution.” Elsewhere, synagogues and Jewish homes in Queens were defaced with neo-Nazi graffiti, using swastika imagery and spraying the words “Heil Hitler.”
For too many within pro-Palestinian activist circles, Jews anywhere and everywhere have become fair game for confrontation and harassment. To justify this, they increasingly rely on the same conspiratorial logic used by those who vandalize homes with neo-Nazi imagery: the idea that Jews operate and think collectively and, therefore, deserve collective punishment.
One cannot decry the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism while simultaneously targeting synagogues in the name of the Palestinian cause. One cannot insist that Judaism and Zionism are entirely separate concepts while treating ordinary Jews as representatives of a foreign state.
If activists believe synagogues are acceptable venues for political confrontation, then the same logic can be weaponized against any ethnic or religious minority connected to conflicts abroad.
These demonstrators often argue that they are merely anti-Zionist, not antisemitic, and have subsequently changed their rhetoric to revolve around “colonialism” and “resistance.” But when protesters descend on synagogues to disrupt Jewish life, the message received by Jews is that their identity has once again made them a target – and political rhetoric is nothing but an excuse.
Jewish people are, sadly, all too familiar with intimidation. Therefore, attempts to terrorize Jewish communities rarely produce fear alone. More often, they strengthen Jewish solidarity and could even deepen the connection Diaspora Jews feel toward Israel.
New York, home to one of the world’s largest Jewish populations, should understand that better than most. Its mayor, Mamdani, has an obligation to recognize when protest crosses into intimidation.
In a city where synagogues become battlegrounds, and Jewish homes become canvases for neo-Nazi vandalism, the debate over Israel is secondary to the threat posed to Jewish life.
