Protests by anti-Israel activists broke out in Crown Heights, with even more aggressive action threatened in the future.
The Monday protests came as the New York Police Department investigated counter-demonstrators for violence at a Thursday Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters demonstration against visiting National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
After the Crown Heights Tenant Union activist group threatened to “Flood the streets of Crown Heights to inform them Zionism is not welcome here,” the NYPD deployed to prevent protesters with Palestinian flags and keffiyehs from overwhelming the neighborhood on Monday.
Calls to “flood” are used by anti-Israel activists to evoke the October 7 massacre, which is known by Hamas and its supporters as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson Rabbi Motti Seligson said on social media that the protesters never made it to the neighborhood due to the NYPD deployments and had instead wandered Brooklyn for three hours.
Seligson said on X/Twitter that the heavy police presence was reminiscent of the 1991 anti-Jewish Crown Heights riots but was distinct because of the presence of counter-protesters in front of the Chabad HQ and at strategic street corners.
“It was heartening to see scores of people, some Jewish and some not, who came to Crown Heights to protect the residents,” Seligson wrote. “These people weren’t looking for a fight.”
Jewish community watch groups from around the New York City area joined patrols in Crown Heights, according to Crown Heights Shomrim. The group said that the “pro-terror gathering” ended without incident.
Crown Heights Bites Back [CHBB] and four other radical groups called for a Tuesday night meeting to discuss the Thursday clashes at Chabad HQ, decrying protest organizers for not preparing for confrontations and for supporters to train for “defensive and offensive tactics.”
“We are outraged and calling on all community members to organize in response to this threat – we are forced to seize the means to safety and self-determination in the face of both state and fascist/Zionist violence,” the group said on Instagram. “Future demonstrations at 770 [Chabad HQ] and other Zionist zones must prioritize street justice, self-defense, and collective physical training to confront both the state and the Zionist terrorists.”
The group described Chabad as “Zionist Nazis” and cast the non-Zionist apolitical hassidic Jewish movement as an oppressive alien force in the New York neighborhoods.
“ZIONISM IS an ideology of Jewish exceptionalism and supremacy that structures and positions all Jewish people as entitled to certain privileges, which ostensibly do not apply to other people around them. It is the same ideology that justifies the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and displaces our elderly Black neighbors [and] community members in Flatbush and Crown Heights. We must confront all forms of this Nazi ideology in all of its manifestations,” said CHBB.
“It is critical that we understand that the Zionists on occupied Lenapehoking land are equally settlers here as they are in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo]. We must affirm land back efforts by indigenous peoples wherever they reside.”
The group said that the Thursday clashes showed that there was “no limit for these Zios and their thirst for blood” and referenced a physical confrontation between a Jewish and African-American resident as illustrative of “a typical Zionist tactic to attempt to incite violence, then reverse roles and play the victim immediately afterward.”
“We reject these frivolous and pathetic accusations of antisemitism and understand this violence as part and parcel of a settler-colonial Jewish supremacist logic which oppresses black and brown Crown Heights, Palestine, and beyond.”
'Racist Zionist Chabad'
The Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee said on Instagram on Sunday that it was waiting for Caribbean-origin Brooklyn residents to “rise up against” the “racist Zionist Chabad-Lubavitch” because they had “long suffered abuse and oppression” at their hands.
“Black people in Brooklyn are violently exploited via rents to then feed their genocidal land grabs in Palestine,” said the activist group, questioning, “What would happen” if the residents “tore down these f***ing monsters?”
The group dismissed concerns about the violent rhetoric as a sign of fear and weakness, warning in a Monday Instagram story, “Y’all won’t wield landlord power over Black and Caribbean Brooklyn to fund Palestinian genocide forever” and that it was “only a matter of time.”
Chabad social media editor Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone responded on X to the solidarity committee’s rhetoric, describing it as part of a “systemic practice of painting Jews in Crown Heights as an alien, Zionist entity.”
“Tonight’s protest is a deliberate attempt to pit our Caribbean neighbors against us, using the timeless antisemitism of Crown Heights,” Lightstone warned.
Ben-Gvir's visit
The rabbi decried the response to the Thursday clashes, in particular that of Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), for focusing on the visit of Ben-Gvir, ignoring the dehumanization of hassidic Jews and the violent rhetoric of those who marched into his neighborhood.
Nadler on Monday condemned violence outside the Chabad HQ, including the alleged harassment of a lone female bystander.
“Violence is never the answer– whether by counter-protesters in Brooklyn or by settlers in the West Bank,” Nadler said on social media, mentioning his new West Bank Violence Prevention Act bill. “Ben-Gvir, Israel’s inciter-in-chief, spent his trip provoking violence wherever he went. I pray that all level-headed leaders can come together to reject this violence and make clear that Ben-Gvir is not welcome here.”
The Monday bill introduced by Nadler, Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA), and Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT) proposed to sanction those involved in terrorism, mob violence, property destruction and seizure, or actions that threatened the stability in Judea and Samaria.
NEW YORK CITY Mayor Adams announced on Monday that the NYPD was investigating several of the incidents, including a lone woman allegedly being wounded and harassed by counter-protesters and another woman surrounded and threatened by counter-protesters. One of the women spoke to the police, but Adams called for others to come forward. The NYPD said the investigation was ongoing and that no arrests had been made.
“None of this is acceptable; in fact, it is despicable,” Adams said. “New York City will always be a place where people can peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing, or threatening. Hate has no place in our city, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani denounced Adams’s statement as a diversion because it failed to mention that the rally was against Ben-Gvir and that anti-Israel activists were attacked. One person was arrested, and five were issued court summons, according to the NYPD.
“The mayor’s failure to mention Ben-Gvir or his role in provoking this violence is exactly why these Zionist mobs are emboldened,” Kiswani said on X. “As long as genocidal figures like Ben-Gvir are given free rein in this city, these attacks will continue.”
Kiswani denied that WOL organized the protest and said that it had been spontaneous. She said she was nearby and involved herself when a member of the Neturei Karta contacted her for help.
Seligson on Monday denounced the mob that chased the lone woman as well as the anti-Israel activists who rallied at the Chabad HQ.
“The violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism – outside a synagogue in a Jewish neighborhood where some of the worst antisemitic violence in American history was perpetrated and where many residents share deep bonds with the victims of October 7 – did so in order to intimidate, provoke, and instill fear,” Seligson said on X.
“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. The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point.”
Ben-Gvir has been on a tour of the United States and addressed a group at Yale University and New York synagogues. According to the JTA, he met with several congresspeople on Monday, during the final day of his visit.
