Protesters overran 7 October Israeli peace vigil attended by Mamdani

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday night overran a vigil marking 7 October attended by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The demonstrators swamped the area of Union Square Park that was supposed to host the event held by Israelis for Peace, a left-wing peace group. The organisers moved the vigil to a nearby spot in the park surrounded by police barricades as speakers struggled to be heard above the protesters. Attendees held electrically lit candles and signs reading, “Not one more life.”

Upon learning Mamdani was present, the pro-Palestinian protesters booed and broke into a chant of “Traitor!” and “Zohran, what do you say? How many boots did you lick today?”

The mayor stood solemnly throughout the event and did not speak at the vigil or address the protesters.

One protester yelled at Israelis for Peace organisers: “We don’t want peace with Israelis, bro! We sent your people to hell on 7 October.” Other protesters wielded megaphones and drums while chanting anti-Israel slogans, including “Gaza will be liberated!” and “Israel is a terrorist state!”

Earlier in the evening, protesters were seen grabbing the electric candles intended for the vigil and mockingly singing the Jewish folk song “Hava Nagila.”

Another protester in the vigil area shouted out his disapproval of Mamdani: “He’s 100 percent Muslim, but as of now, he stands as an ambassador of Zionism and U.S. imperialism.”

And someone else carried a poster depicting Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who helped mastermind the attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people three years ago, Wednesday.

Amid the cacophony, Brad Lander, the Jewish Democratic nominee running to represent parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in Congress, took the microphone during the vigil to recite the words of the mother of a 20-year-old man who was murdered at the Nova music festival three years ago. He looked visibly shaken as the evening progressed, watching the protesters while speakers shared testimonies of people killed on 7 October.

Speakers also shared testimonies of Palestinians killed by the Israel Defence Forces, and the event included the group being led in a Muslim prayer. Many speakers referred to Israel’s campaign in Gaza as a “genocide.”

The vigil ended with the participants raising their candles and reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer honouring the dead. As they filed out of the event, the protesters shouted “Death to the IDF!”

Lander told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that throughout the ceremony he felt “a deep and profound sadness for the testimony” of those lost, recalling that he’s met family members of some of the victims, both Jewish and Palestinian, whose stories were read.

“That level of heartbreak is a lot more than the level of having some people shouting,” he said. “The flattening of empathy is another sadness. And the fact that this is one of the few places where people even try to say Kaddish together and to mourn both Israeli lives lost on 7 October and 75,000 Palestinian lives lost in Israel’s war since, is also sad. And that’s why it was important to do.”

Amichai Lau-Lavie, who leads New York’s Lab Shul and led the Mourner’s Kaddish, told JTA that “In the heat of these protest battles, there’s no room for nuance. It’s the slurs and the slogans. And what we saw here tonight was hatred that is coming from a good place of justice and freedom, but is not attuned to what we’re doing here.” He described that goal as one that acknowledges that both peoples’ futures are intertwined.

Lau-Lavie also praised the mayor for coming. “I can say I’m glad about the fact that the mayor was here and witnessed this animosity, and stood with us,” he noted. “For all his flaws, and there are many, I hope he got something.”

Despite the war of words, both gatherings disbanded peacefully. No arrests were made.

Amid the rival gatherings, Ross Glick, a New York pro-Israel activist and former executive director of Betar US, a far-right staunchly Zionist group, arrived with a group of counter-protesters holding Israeli flags. They were swiftly confronted by anti-Israel protesters, and the two sides got into a shouting match as they stood separated by a barrier.

The pro-Palestinian protesters had held a rally at City Hall, organised by Pal-Awda and various student groups, before heading to the location of the vigil. They condemned Israel and the United States for the war in Gaza, but also criticized Mamdani for capitulating “to Zionist pressure.” Some carried anti-Mamdani signs, including one that depicted Mamdani rolling out a red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The throng of protesters outside City Hall chanted “Free Palestine,” “Globalise the intifada,” “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” and “Israel is a terrorist state.”

One protester held a sign reading “Operation Epstein Fury,” a play on Operation Epic Fury. Another held a sign that read “Liberation in action 7 October .” Nearby, an Israeli flag was held up with the text “Death cult” and an inverted red triangle — a Hamas symbol — atop the Star of David.

Earlier in the day, Jews in the city who marked 7 October expressed fear about the political environment three years on from the attacks.

Toni Rabin, an 83-year-old Upper West Sider who lived in Israel in the 1970s, told JTA that she calls herself a progressive and has attended protests against President Donald Trump. But like many New York Jews, she gets unnerved by Mamdani.

“I’m burying my head in the sand a bit, because it’s a little too much for me to handle,” she admitted. She timed her arrival for her swim at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan to coincide with the commemoration of the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks by Hamas in southern Israel.

“We should never forget,” she said. “We already have forgotten so much about the Holocaust, and there are very few people left who can speak about it anymore. They’re dying out. … So, we have to remember the horrific event that took place, the shock.”

She spoke over the sound of a cellist who performed for a small crowd in a lobby that was otherwise packed with small children having lunch with grownups. There was art on display by the Israeli artist Zeev Engelmayer from his “Strokes of Hope” exhibition.

Throughout the city on Wednesday, New Yorkers found themselves coping with the intense memories of learning about the 1,200 people, mostly Israelis but also foreign nationals, slain in Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October, 2023, the majority of them civilians. Meanwhile, Palestinian residents and their supporters mourned the more than 74,000 Palestinians killed in the ensuing Gaza war, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Hours before arriving at the vigil, Mamdani posted a statement on X in which he paid tribute both to Israelis killed by Hamas attackers in southern Israel on 7 October, 2023, and to Palestinians killed in the Gaza war that followed.

His statement infuriated leaders in the mainstream Jewish community, who read his post as yet another vehicle for accusing the Israeli government of genocide and apartheid.

Wednesday “marks three years since the horrific war crimes of 7 October. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others,” the mayor said in his X post. “We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbours who still carry that unthinkable loss.”

He went on, however, to say that the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presided over an “ongoing genocide in Gaza,” saying that Israel “has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children.”

Mamdani continued, “Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.”

The city’s Jewish Community Relations Council was scathing in its response, saying that Mamdani “continues to fall short” of bringing New Yorkers together.

“It does not honour the dead to pit them against each other,” it said in its statement. “It is shameful. Today, Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs walked through metal detectors to drop off our children at preschool, thanked the police officers posted outside our synagogues for keeping us safe, tucked in our Jewish stars on the subway, and felt the gut punch of grief remembering the 1,200 innocent people who were slaughtered in their homes, in front of their families, and dancing at a music festival just because they were Jewish.”

Lander, favoured to win his race for Congress next month, said on X ahead of the vigil that there was room to mourn the dead on all sides. “On this third anniversary of 7 October, a good start is to try to resist the flattening of empathy, to let ourselves weep for all the lives lost, the children killed, the families torn apart, the homes destroyed.”