Mamdani reiterates support for both right to protest and to enter synagogues after Park East rally redux

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🎙 Elected officials rally after antisemitic graffiti spree

• Elected officials and Jewish community leaders including City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Jewish Community Relations Council CEO Mark Treyger, Comptroller Mark Levine and Rep. Grace Meng rallied on Tuesday for the city to take action against an antisemitic vandalism spree in Queens.

• The leaders gathered outside Congregation Machane Chodosh, one of several sites hit with swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti on Monday.

🕍 Pro-Palestinian demonstraters rally outside Park East Synagogue — again

• Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side during an event promoting real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday night. Our Joseph Strauss was on the scene.

• The demonstrators chanted “Death, death to the IDF” and “Settlers settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone.” Dozens of pro-Israel counter-protesters responded with “There is no Palestine!” and “Terrorists!”

• It was the second time that protesters targeted Park East in six months. In November, demonstrators picketed an event promoting immigration to Israel just feet away from the entrance, sparking a push for “buffer zone” legislation that has since been passed by the City Council but has not gone into effect. This time, police showed up in full force and kept protesters well over 100 feet away from the building.

• Ahead of the standoff, Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized the event at Park East while defending people’s right to enter the building. “Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank,” said spokesperson Sam Raskin.

• Mamdani added on Wednesday, after the rally, that the NYPD had “ensured” both “the sacrosanct nature of the right to protest” and New Yorkers’ ability to “safely enter or exit from a house of worship.”

• Other officials and Jewish organizations took a hard line against the protesters. Micah Lasher, an assemblyman is running to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in the district that includes Park East, said their protest was “intended to create fear in the hearts of Jewish New Yorkers and stigmatize our community.” UJA-Federation of New York called it “outrageous and dangerous,” and Treyger said, “No one should ever have to calculate personal risk before walking through the doors of a house of worship.”

🏆 Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame winners

City Council Speaker Julie Menin is inducted into the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative’s Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame. (Grace Gilson)

• Menin was among 11 people inducted into the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative’s Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame on Tuesday evening in Bryant Park.

• During the event, which also inducted entrepreneur Ari Ackerman and singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester, Menin discussed her “buffer zone” legislation and defended a bill limiting protests around schools that was vetoed by Mamdani.

• “As there is a protest at Park East, again, tonight, this is what we need to do,” Menin said. “We need to ensure the safety of the community. Of course, we allow the First Amendment right to peacefully protest, it’s sacrosanct, but what we don’t allow is intimidation, harassment or injury as people are trying to go into their house of worship, and that should not be controversial. It also should not be controversial around schools.”

📱 Miss Israel takes on Rama Duwaji

• Melanie Shiraz, who was crowned Miss Israel in 2025, claimed that her encounter with Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji at a Williamsburg cafe tuned sour on Sunday. After they took a selfie together, Shiraz said on Instagram that Duwaji “refused to have a conversation” with her “the moment she found out I was Israeli.”

• Duwaji, who has a long record of outspoken opposition to Israel, did not weigh in on social media or immediately reply to a request for comment. Mamdani has said she is “a private person” with no role in his administration. In response to an inquiry about the alleged incident, Mamdani’s office said it would not be weighing in.

📊 Israel grows increasingly unpopular in the Hudson Valley

• A poll of NY-17, a heavily Jewish district in the Hudson Valley, found that Israel is increasingly unpopular with Democratic voters, Politico reports.

• 44% of Democratic voters there sympathized more with Palestinians than Israelis, while 18% favored Israelis, 23% sympathized with both equally and 11% sympathized with neither, according to the survey conducted by the left-leaning firm Data for Progress.

• The poll was commissioned by Effie Phillips-Staley, the underdog hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in a crowded Democratic primary, and found Jewish candidate Beth Davidson in the lead.

📚 Bores endorsed by CUNY union

• Alex Bores, who is running for Congress in NY-12, accepted an endorsement yesterday from CUNY’s staff and faculty union. That drew the ire of United Jewish Teachers leader Moshe Spern, who pointed to the union’s vociferous support for pro-Palestinian protests.

• “Hi Moshe, this is an endorsement that every major candidate pursued,” Bores said to Spern on X. “In my interview, we discussed the issues I highlighted in the [original] tweet: funding public education and regulating AI.” Bores added that he has “spoken out against antisemitic incidents on campuses (including CUNY specifically) and will continue to do so.”

• A forum for NY-12 candidates at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue tonight will be missing Bores after he was initially on the lineup, our Joseph Strauss reports. Bores’ team confirmed that the Assembly member will be in Washington, D.C. Lasher, Jack Schlossberg, George Conway and Nina Schwalbe will attend the forum, moderated by Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a leading pro-Israel voice in the district and beyond.