Left-wing Jewish groups condemn far-right Israeli lawmakers’ participation in NYC’s Israel parade

Left-wing Jewish groups in New York City condemn far-right Israeli lawmakers marching in the city’s annual Israel parade yesterday.

The Israeli delegation to the parade included Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.

Smotrich and Eliyahu have a long history of inflammatory statements, with the former declaring in 2021 that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, should have “finished the job” and kicked all Arabs out of the country when it was founded. Eliyahu suggested that one of Israel’s options in the recent war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip.

New York Jewish Agenda, a political, progressive Zionist group, says in a statement that, “It is shocking to see New York officials march alongside Kahanists like Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit members.”

“Smotrich and his ilk represent a dangerous politics of division rooted in bigotry, and there should be no place for them in New York,” the statement says.

The far-left activist group Jews for Economic and Racial Justice (JFREJ), an organization allied with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, says it is “outraged” that local and state officials “marched alongside war criminals and claimed it was an expression of support for Jews.”

Israel Day Parade in NYC: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli lawmakers and American politicians march on Fifth Avenue

NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani decided to skip the event | @Etanetan23

Video:… pic.twitter.com/8lARnXk4yy

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 31, 2026

No Israelis have been convicted of war crimes.

JFREJ does not march in the parade and backed Mamdani’s decision to boycott the march, calling the event “overtly nationalistic.”

“Shame on every elected official who marched yesterday,” JFREJ says.

The parade organizer, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said ahead of the parade that it was unaware who would be marching from the Israeli government, and that the decision was up to the Israeli consulate in New York.

Smotrich and Eliyahu had not been anticipated at the event. The consulate’s list of participants ahead of the parade did not include either lawmaker.

The Israeli delegation marched as its own group in the parade, and it did not appear that New York elected officials marched with the far-right lawmakers or were aware of their presence during the event, which drew more than 50,000 participants.