As Leah Preiserowicz was ushered through rows of metal barriers by police officers on her way to an Israeli real estate event in Brooklyn, she had two goals in mind: to peruse the listings and to show support for the event in the face of a large pro-Palestinian protest.
“We want to support what they were doing, support the sales,” said Preiserowicz, an Orthodox Jewish Midwood resident. “Why should they scare us?”
The Israeli real estate event Monday evening at Young Israel of Midwood, an Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn’s heavily Jewish Midwood neighborhood, attracted a steady stream of attendees as roughly 200 pro-Palestinian protesters lined either end of the block, kept at bay by large groups of police officers.
While the event was the latest in a string of demonstrations outside of synagogues hosting Israeli real estate expos, for some attendees Monday night, the prospect of purchasing property was almost beside the point.
Kasriel Brum, an Orthodox Midwood resident, said he was not aware of the real estate event but had come to Young Israel of Midwood because he had heard about the protest.
“I was worried they were going to come to the shul, so we came to protect it,” Brum said, adding that while he was “used to” the protests, it was “maybe the first time I saw such hatred in their faces.”
Separated from the event by a full city block by the NYPD, the largest cluster of pro-Palestinian protesters featured a Hezbollah flag among the crowd and loud chants of “Settler, settlers go back home,” “Globalize the intifada,” and “Death to the IDF.”
In another crowd of roughly equal size, a handful of pro-Israel counter-protesters chanted in Hebrew — some of them singing “May Your Village Burn,” a chant associated with Israel’s far right, according to the Times of Israel. At one point, eggs were thrown from the crowd, striking pro-Palestinian protesters and a police officer.
After nearly three hours, the pro-Palestinian protesters began making their way toward a nearby train station as groups of pro-Israel counter-protesters followed nearby and several skirmishes broke out. Police made at least one arrest.
Protesters and counter-protesters are separated by police in Midwood, Brooklyn on May 11, 2026. (Grace Gilson)
Monday’s protest, which was advertised on social media by the anti-Zionist group PAL-Awda as a demonstration to “stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land,” marked the latest in a series of pro-Palestinian protests targeting Israeli real estate events at synagogues in recent months. The group takes aim at real estate sales in the West Bank, where pro-Palestinian advocates and many countries consider Israeli settlements illegal, but also has condemned all Jews who have moved to Israel as “settlers,” regardless of where they move.
“After their Manhattan event, the same israeli real estate agencies are hosting an event in Brooklyn for settlers to buy property in ‘Anglo neighborhoods’ on Stolen Palestinian Land,” PAL-Awda wrote in a post on Instagram announcing the demonstration. “They blatantly advertise illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, such as Gush Etzion, Kfar Eldad and Karnei Shormon, violating international law.”
The Israeli real estate events have drawn condemnation from anti-Zionist groups, as well as from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for advertising West Bank settlements.
Previous demonstrations, including a November protest at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan during which demonstrators gathered feet from its doors, have drawn accusations of antisemitism from Jewish leaders and spurred a “buffer zone” law recently passed by the New York City Council that allows police to insulate houses of worship from protesters.
The law, which passed with a veto-proof majority, has not yet gone into effect, but police have still stepped up their efforts to keep protesters from synagogues since the November rally. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch apologized during a Shabbat service at the time for the police department’s lapses at Park East.
The protests have had another effect: propelling Jews to the real estate events, whether to show support or to plot an exit route from the city.
Faye, a 75-year-old Jewish woman who lives in an apartment next door to the synagogue, said that she had attended the event to show “support for my people.”
“None of these people are going to tell me what to do. I don’t care about Mamdani or any of the antisemitism, this is my city,” said Faye, who declined to give her last name. “I’ve lived here my entire life. You leave, not me.”
Police officers form a barricade around Young Israel of Midwood, a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York on May 11, 2026. (Grace Gilson)
Moshe, who represented a real estate firm at the event Monday and declined to share his last name, said the expo had drawn over 150 people. Moshe, who moved from New York to Israel himself, said interest in buying Israel real estate had grown by “a lot” in recent years, a surge he attributed to “a feeling of unsafety in the city.”
Another organizer of the event, who requested anonymity out of fear of threats from protesters, said that while demonstrators had framed the rally as opposition to the sale of West Bank settlement properties, the outcry had been “disproportional” to the events themselves.
“Within the last five years, has there been an event where there has been a project that is beyond the Green Line? Yes,” the organizer said, referring to the boundary between Israel and the West Bank. “There’s been plenty without, and even the one that had one, it’s one of 100.”
But while many residents flocked to the event to show solidarity, others said they were considering a move to Israel.
Sarah, a 69-year-old Orthodox Midwood resident who declined to give her last name, said she and her husband had attended the event because they were looking to buy or rent property in Israel after growing disillusioned with New York.
“We’re anxious to get out of here already, we’ve had enough in New York,” she said, citing Mamdani and saying she felt he was “not protecting our community, you know, helping Jewish people.”
Sarah said she had heard about protests in Manhattan but had not expected to encounter protesters in her neighborhood. She said seeing the demonstration made her feel “horrible, because they hate us, and for no reason. We’re not the kind of people who hate other people.”
She said the protests fit into the reasons she was looking for a home in Israel.
“Here, you don’t know who could hurt you, harm you,” Sarah said. “There, you feel safe because you know it’s mostly your own people.”
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