“You know why you never see white supremacists marching on the streets of NYC?” a former NYPD Hate Crimes unit boss once asked me. “Because they know they’d get the sh*t kicked out of them.”
Some things New Yorkers won’t tolerate: blatant racism, homophobia, attacks on law enforcement, and stopping at the top of the subway stairs.
Finally, a reason to check your email.
Sign up for our free newsletter today.
Or so we thought. Unfortunately, the last few years have shown us that antisocial, anti-Semitic, and violent behavior aren’t just tolerated in New York City—they’re excused and increasingly encouraged.
I write these words in the aftermath of 150 rioters trying to storm the barricades outside Park East Synagogue on 67th Street in Manhattan, injuring two cops. The hooligans waved flags representing organizations whose members have American blood on their hands. This time, the excuse for flying Hezbollah flags was an informational event for New Yorkers considering leaving the city and moving to Israel (totally coincidental, I presume). The rioters chanted their greatest hits—like “NYPD, IDF, KKK you’re all the same!” and “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it!”—and called for an “Intifada Revolution.”
Though all these events happened this past Tuesday, I could have written this on any number of mornings: last week, after three Hasidic Jews, whose crime is that they are easily identifiable as Jews, were attacked in Brooklyn; or on Monday, after Swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered yet again in Queens. And that’s just New York. If we include attacks in other places in the United States and in Sydney and London, well, it’s no wonder Jews feel under assault.
Extremists will always be with us. A few hundred wackos cosplaying intifada aren’t the issue, and I’m thankful to live in a country where we are free to say as we please, no matter how foolish. The danger lies in our tolerance of their actions, which began as a collective shrug and has transformed, in many cases, to full-throated support. The obsession with the dismantling of the Jewish state, the radical chic of our moment, has led our friends and neighbors to excuse this behavior and even to justify it.
As masked men yell about killing Jews, well-meaning, peaceful commentators will assure you that they’re angry only about the settlements question. When rioters attack police officers in an attempt to get close to a house of worship (on behalf of causes our own mayor supports), many of our fellow New Yorkers—influenced by radical education and two-minute Instagram reels that dumb down a complex, decades-long conflict—will confidently tell you that this violence is a natural response to the policies of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that anti-Semitism has nothing to do with it.
New Yorkers should pay careful attention to the words of those trying to stampede into a synagogue. Don’t take it from me—take it from those to whom many of you extend your sympathy. They aren’t shy about sharing their final solution to the problem.
Even if the Park East Synagogue protesters were justified in their concerns about the sale of “Palestinian land,” how much hate and violence are we willing to tolerate in this city? If a group of white men attacked cops outside a Hispanic church and yelled “go back to Mexico” while waving Klan flags, would we say they’re just protesting lax border policies? No: we would tell them to get the hell out of our city.
Unfortunately, the rot of propaganda against Israel that pollutes social media, running through our universities and all the way up to Gracie Mansion, is now just another bullet point in the progressive agenda. Tax the rich, socialize health care, and dismantle the sovereign nation that offers the only safe haven for the world’s 15 million Jews—by any means necessary.
When Zohran Mamdani was arrested on October 13, 2023, for protesting a “genocide” while Israelis were still counting bodies and frantically searching for abducted loved ones, it should have sent a chill down New Yorkers’ collective spine. Instead, we chose him to lead the city. When we looked to our elected officials for moral clarity after such incidents—including some who were barricaded inside their own homes as they unfolded—we watched them choose appeasement and equivocation instead.
Are sane Jewish New Yorkers alone in this fight? For New York, this Tuesday’s latest anti-Semitic outrage hasn’t acted as a wakeup call. It seems more like a snooze alarm that we’re sleeping through. That needs to change.