How much more are Jewish people in New York City expected to take?
Earlier in the week, a protest in front of Wall Street’s Nova Music Festival Exhibition — commemorating individuals slaughtered at an Israel music festival during the October 7 attacks — waved Hamas and Hezbollah flags and a “Long live October 7 banner, chanted “long live the intifada” and lit flares.
Tuesday, a mob took over a subway car in New York City and chanted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.”
Two nights earlier, the homes of several of the Brooklyn Museum’s Jewish board members and its director, Anne Pasternak, were defaced with a sign accusing Pasternak of being a “White-Supremacist Zionist” and fake blood.
This is the worst it’s been in recent memory. It’s no longer random attacks that could be blamed on the mentally unfit.
There is now a coordinated threat to Jewish presence in NYC.
“Hate doesn’t have a home in our city,” said Bill de Blasio in 2019, following eight attacks on Jews within a week in New York.
De Blasio famously blamed supporters of Trump for the increased attacks and said, “I want to be very, very clear, the violent threat, the threat that is ideological, is very much from the right.”
The then-mayor never explained how the shadowy MAGA fans existed in such significant numbers in his deep blue New York and could stay undercover so well.
To his credit, Mayor Adams visited the Nova exhibit following the hateful protest.
However, he said similar words to his clueless predecessor, “Hate has no place in our city,” when it’s pronounced “hate” has developed a significant foothold in New York, where Jews are concerned.
It has gotten so bad that even far-left Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Comptroller Brad Lander, both usually good friends to Jew-haters, pretended alarm at the open antisemitism they helped to foster.
Meanwhile, Adrienne Adams, city council speaker, is looking to stoke the flames of antisemitism any further by working on a completely pointless resolution to the cease-fire.
The Gaza fire won’t stop because some City Councilwoman says so.
However, violence against Jews in the city will increase as she pushes the lie that Israel is continuing to commit genocide.
Jews in New York find themselves in a tough place.
New York City had long been a safe place for the Jewish population.
Antisemites always existed somewhere else, not in New York.
Update on the war in Israel
Over the last few years, something else has been exposed. It’s difficult now not to notice the vilest hate is happening in New York.
The mob masks itself to conceal their identity to continue their violence and then disappear into the crowd.
It’s worth making note that when the regular attacks on Jews were happening during Bill de Blasio’s terms, with hundreds caught on video, only one perpetrator ever spent a day in prison.
Jewish people are being given the message that no one will protect them, and they are largely not allowed to defend themselves.
Mayor Adams told influencer Lizzy Savetsky at the Nova exhibit, “We have the largest Jewish population outside Israel right here in New York. This is not going to be a city where you’ll have to take off your yarmulke, be afraid to walk inside a synagogue,” but added, “or church or mosque,” like anyone is scared to walk into those.
Adams seemed to want to cut off the apparent criticism that Jewish people have been left mainly exposed in his city, saying, “A minority of those who want us to live in fear, who want us to say ‘police departments you’re not doing enough,’ who want us to turn on our allies, we can’t turn on each other.”
What would Adams have done on the subway without his security detail? Would he say he’s a Zionist and raise his hand? What should the Jews in his city do?
Demanding more than words isn’t turning on each other.
If hate has no home in New York City…Adams and the city must prove it.
