From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 17, 2025
NY leaders issue warnings about anti-Israel protest tomorrow in Brooklyn Jewish neighborhood
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
New York political leaders issue warnings about an anti-Israel protest planned for tomorrow in Boro Park, a neighborhood in Brooklyn with a large Orthodox Jewish population.
The anti-Israel protest group PAL-Awda says it will hold a protest tomorrow evening in the area. The starting point for the protest is near a number of synagogues. The group says the protest is aimed at an event selling real estate in Israel, although the location for the event has reportedly been changed.
“Flood Boro Park to stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land,” the group says in a post announcing the event. Anti-Israel groups in New York often refer to their events as “floods,” an homage to the Hamas term for the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, the “Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Simcha Eisenstein, a Jewish politician who represents the area in the New York State Assembly, calls on the NYPD and mayor to “prevent this hateful, targeted protest against our local Jewish community.”
Kalman Yeger, a Jewish New York State assembly member from another area of Brooklyn, said, “Hamas terrorists plan to storm our community on Tuesday. NYPD can and must stop this.”
New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, from the Bronx, says, “PAL-Awda is targeting Boro Park simply because it is Jewish.”
“The pervasive post-Oct 7 atmosphere of amplified antisemitism has driven antisemitic hate crimes to historic highs in New York — a profound failure of public safety on the part of both the city and the state,” Torres says.
The local community board says it is in contact with the NYPD.
“We’ve been assured that they are fully prepared and will not allow any illegal activities, intimidation, or harassment of our residents,” the board says. Rep. Daniel Goldman, of Manhattan, says, “This ‘protest’ is in fact targeted harassment aimed at a neighborhood with one of the highest populations of Orthodox Jews in the US.”
“To harass and intimidate Jews because of the actions of Israel is textbook antisemitism. True progressives must speak out against this hate,” Goldman says.
