A severe leg injury sustained during an anti-Israel protest Tuesday evening at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan sent a New York Police Department officer to the hospital.
Per the new bill that recently passed the City Council to create buffer zones around synagogues during protests, barriers were set up to prevent unruly protesters from charging into the buffer zone. But the pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah crowd weren’t about to let that stop them, and they attempted to force the barriers back. The police officer who got injured tried to stop them from moving the barriers.
“During the course of the demonstration, individuals attempted to remove barriers,” an NYPD spokesperson told a Jewish media outlet. “As a result, an officer sustained an injury to his leg and was transported to a local hospital for treatment.”
“Also, water was thrown on officers from a building on the demonstration route,” he added.
During the hours-long demonstration, the police did not arrest any protesters, the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson from Community Security Services, a nonprofit that protects Jewish communities, told the media outlet that, thanks to the buffer zone, people were able to enter the synagogue and also leave safely.
But at the barriers, it was another matter entirely. Police tried to keep the crowd back as protesters attempted to remove the barriers. Protesters carried Hezbollah flags and shouted slogans.
“How is it OK to wave terrorist flags in front of a Jewish daycare?” asked Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department’s task force on antisemitism, on X.
“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. This is INSANITY!”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) also took to X to slam his party’s silence on the egregiously antisemitic display.
“Mob of Pro-Hezbollah/Hamas s***heads raging against law enforcement and terrorizing the NYC Jewish community near a synagogue and day care. Where’s my party’s condemnation?” he asked.
Both men were responding to podcaster and Jewish advocate Rabbi Poupko, who wrote, “To summarize the evening: the mob came to a Synagogue, forced a Jewish day care to close early, came with a Hezbollah flag, cheered for intifada, and said ‘we don’t want no Zionists here.’ We cannot normalize this behavior.”
But Jewish leaders also thanked the NYPD for their work in keeping worshippers safe.
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, thanked the NYPD and its commissioner, Jessica Tisch, for doing “an extraordinary job ensuring worshipers could safely enter and leave” the house of worship.
“We are grateful for their preparedness and leadership, particularly under very challenging circumstances,” he said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani qualified his condemnation of the protest by doubling down on his anti-Israel rhetoric Wednesday, declaring that antisemitism has no place in New York City but also saying that Park East Synagogue was violating international law by hosting a real estate event that dealt with land sales in Judea and Samaria.
“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,” he said. “I do believe that the police ensured that yesterday evening.”
“There is no tolerance for hatred of Jewish New Yorkers, which we have seen time and time again, whether it be in the graffitiing of swastikas on a number of homes across Queens recently,” he added. “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,” he concluded.
While Mamdani signed a veto-proof bill to create buffer zones around synagogues, he vetoed a similar bill to create buffer zones around schools.
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