(RNS) — When houses of worship become staging grounds for political rage, nothing good comes of it.
That truth was once again on display Wednesday night (Nov. 19) at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, which was hosting a program by Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that helps North American Jews immigrate to Israel, as anti-Israel protesters gathered outside.
Protesters shouted slogans like “death to the IDF,” “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada” and “Resistance you make us proud, take another settler out,” according to reports from outside the event. Some also yelled epithets full of obscenities, with one shouting, “F***ing Jewish pricks,” as reported by The Times of Israel.
And then, the line that defined the night came from a masked demonstrator: “We need to make them scared.”
They were not chanting that they disagree with Israel’s policies. Neither were they offering loud critiques of Israel’s military decisions. They were there to intimidate Jews. All Jews were their targets — all fair game and embodiments of a hatred that predates the modern state of Israel.
How did Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani respond? His press secretary, Dora Pekec, said that Mamdani “believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” The press secretary also said, “The mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so.”
That statement tells us two things.
First, Mamdani and his team need to understand what happened outside Park East Synagogue and its deeper implications.
Their initial instinct is correct: Houses of worship must be free of intimidation. But they immediately pivoted. Did they mean to imply that the synagogue itself may have provoked the hatred it received that night? If so, they are playing a very old game. Antisemites strike at Jews, and the Jews must have deserved it. The message becomes that such institutions should be safe, but only as long as the religious community meets one’s undefined standard of acceptable conduct.
Second, Mamdani’s office needs to understand that neither he, nor New York City, has jurisdiction — legal, moral or theological — over what takes place in a Jewish house of worship.
A synagogue is not a regulated public forum. It is a sanctuary governed by its own ancient traditions, liturgy, history and obligations under Jewish law. It’s separation of church and state.
Those obligations under traditional Jewish law, at least as many Jews interpret them, include living in the land of Israel and celebrating the Jewish connection to the land. Spend any time in synagogue or walking through the Jewish life cycle, and you will see it. You can barely get through three pages in the traditional Jewish prayer book without encountering Israel, Zion and Jerusalem. When we pray, we face Jerusalem. Our prayers invoke the agricultural cycle of the land of Israel.
Jerusalem also has a starring role in the Jewish wedding ceremony. When we bury our dead, we do so with sacks of soil from Israel, and we comfort those who mourn “along with all those who mourn in Zion and Jerusalem.” When we say the blessing after the meal, we invoke the land of Israel in almost every other paragraph. When we attend a Passover Seder, we conclude with “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Israel is not a supplemental option. It is central.
So, if a synagogue hosts an event for those who seek to move to Israel, it is not a foreign policy conversation. It is history and theology. For those Jews, it is as central as a lesson on kashrut, or how to observe Shabbat.
But doesn’t Nefesh B’Nefesh promote moving into areas that are over the Green Line, into settlements that have been declared illegal? Pekec clarified that those were the activities the statement alluded to that violated international law.
It’s beside the point. The demonstrators were not qualifying or offering geographic limitations to their hateful remarks. It was just pure, violent, unfiltered hate. And if they have problems with Israeli policies, there is a place to voice those concerns: an Israeli consulate.
Because what were the demonstrators saying? “Death to the IDF” is a wish directed at Israeli soldiers. When you consider that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews, and many non-Jews, serve in the Israel Defense Forces, that means almost all Israelis are fair game.
“Globalize the intifada” means “kill Jews everywhere.”
“Take another settler out” is not a principled critique of Israel’s settlement policy. I take it as saying they want my relatives who live in parts of Jerusalem dead. It is an exhortation to murder.
And “We need to make them scared” means to terrorize Jews, to target them for being Jewish and for participating in Jewish activities.
The synagogue’s spiritual leader is Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor. Schneier was born in Vienna and would have been about 8 years old on Kristallnacht. You think those memories go away? Doesn’t he deserve one of those famous trigger warnings?
To quote a statement from the Reform movement:
It is not enough to “discourage” the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” nor should the mayor’s office have provided cover to protestors by expressing alignment with their positions on Israeli settlements. The mayor-elect must be clear and unequivocal that Jewish houses of worship must not be places for intimidation. Policy debates are welcome; threats are never permissible.
When Jews see what happened outside Park East Synagogue, and those protesters’ fellow haters on the left and the right, it reminds them of why Zionism was necessary in the first place.