Antisemitic mob calls for ‘death’ at NYC synagogue protest

Pro-Hamas demonstrators harass Jews trying to enter Manhattan synagogue with antisemitic insults and calls to annihilate the State of Israel as local Israel supporters hold counter rally.

By World Israel News Staff

Antisemitic hecklers hurled anti-Jewish epithets at Jews outside a synagogue in New York City Wednesday evening during a protest against Jewish immigration to Israel.

Dozens of pro-Hamas activists gathered outside of the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan to harangue Jews entering the building for an event promoting aliyah, or immigration to the Jewish state, held by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization, which works to facilitate immigration to Israel.

The protest was organized by the radical pro-Hamas group Pal-Awda: Palestinian Assembly for Liberation, which condemned any efforts to aid or enable Jewish migration to Israel, denied Israel’s right to exist and described all Jews in the country as “settlers on stolen land.”

The demonstration was endorsed by the Jewish Voice for Peace, Writers Against the War on Gaza, and multiple pro-Hamas student groups in New York.

The several dozen anti-Israel demonstrators included members of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement, who held up signs denouncing Israel while standing alongside keffiyeh-clad activists.

A counter-rally of Israel supporters was held across the street from the Pal-Awda protest, with police officers ensuring the two groups remained separate, barricading the two demonstrations.

Participants in the Pal-Awda protest verbally assaulted Jews passing by them on their way to the synagogue, in some cases using vulgar antisemitic epithets.

“You f***ing Jewish pricks,” one woman shouted at Jewish passersby.

Another protester shouted: “You are a f***ing rapist and racist, the two worst things in the f***ing world.”

Some protesters called for the destruction of the State of Israel and violence against Israelis, with chants including “Death to the IDF,” and “Resistance is glorious.”

Other chants heard at the protest included “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “No peace on stolen land,” and “We don’t want no two states, we want ‘48.”

Denying Israel’s right to exist, some protesters shouted, “Palestine is Arab.”

Model and Republican Jewish activist Elizabeth Pipko, a member of the Park East Synagogue, lamented the protest and noted that the demonstrators had gathered outside of the synagogue’s Jewish day school.

“This is my synagogue,” Pipko wrote on X. “My family has proudly belonged to Park East Synagogue since their arrival in America in the 1970s (ironically fleeing from antisemitism and scenes just like this).”

“It’s also important to note that the entrance being protested in front of here is Park East Day School,” Pipko said.

“Not only is Park East an amazing place where I spent most of my childhood, but it is where children as young as 2 and 3 years old are going to walk in tomorrow morning to get a Jewish education. A place they should be allowed to feel safe. My heart breaks for NYC and what it is becoming.”