Arrests made after clash outside NYC synagogue as far-right Israeli official visits
Anti-Israel protesters rallied outside the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on as Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited and gave a speech at the synagogue.
Spectee
New York city police are investigating after two women were reportedly assaulted by pro-Israeli counter-protesters during clashes with a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on social media.
A visit to New York by far-right Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler who has pressed for an intensification of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, sparked protests in recent days. After pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, one woman was isolated from her group, harassed by counter-protesters and injured while another was surrounded and subjected to “vile” threats, Adams said on Sunday.
“Let me be clear: None of this is acceptable, in fact it is despicable. New York City will always be a place where people can peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing or threatening,” Adams said. “Hate has no place in our city, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
Adams said one person had been arrested and urged the women to come forward, saying the NYPD had not yet been able to locate them.
A clip from the incident was shared on social media and shows a police officer trying to protect a woman as a group of men chase, kick and throw objects at her. As the officer led her into a police car, the crowd cheered.
The woman in the video told the Associated Press she was not part of the protests, but the group surrounded her after she pulled up her scarf because she did not want to be filmed. Hundreds of men and boys followed her for blocks as some threatened to rape her and chanted “death to Arabs,” the outlet reported.
“I felt sheer terror,” the woman, who was not identified, told the Associated Press. “I realized at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.”
Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for Chabad-Lubavitch, denounced both the “violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism” and the counter-protesters in a statement provided to the Associated Press and shared on social media.
“We condemn the crude language and violence of the small breakaway group of young people; such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values,” he said. “The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point.”
Human rights advocates have raised concerns about rising Islamophobia and antisemitism as the conflict escalated following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants. The woman interviewed by the Associated Press and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, called on police to investigate the assault as a hate incident.
“Every community, religious or political leader who cares about the safety of residents and freedom and justice in our city, state and nation must speak out strongly against this apparently racist attack by a pro-Israel mob,” Afaf Nasher, the executive director of the New York chapter of CAIR, said in a statement. “If a huge mob of men surrounding a woman and threatening her security fails to shake our conscience, then we are a lost people.”
Contributing: Reuters