Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
City officials and faith leaders gathered at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan the day after a gunman killed two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington.
“This violence is exactly what they mean when you hear the words, ‘globalize the intifada,’” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at the memorial at the Center for Jewish History.“It is the actual plan out of these comments. Violence is something that is unacceptable and not tolerated, and that is what we mean when we say antisemitic propaganda is masquerading as activism,” the mayor said. “Let’s call this what it is, a depraved act of terrorism.”
The city is also “deploying heavy weapons teams to Jewish cultural institutions and houses of worship, and enhancing coverage to Israeli diplomatic facilities,” as it has done “periodically” after Oct. 7, he added.
Al Sharpton, an activist and religious leader who has acknowledged partially his role in inciting the antisemitic Crown Heights Riots in 1999, said at the vigil that black leaders must speak out about rising Jew-hatred and stand with the Jewish community.
If there had been an attack at the Schomburg Library, a historic city library dedicated to studying black culture, “and it was two young blacks, I would have expected to see Jewish leadership stand with us,” Sharpton said.
One can’t be a civil rights activist or leader “if you’re only for your own civil rights, and you cannot be a faith leader if you only stand up for people in your own faith,” Sharpton said.
Hindy Poupko, senior vice president of community strategy and external relations at the UJA-Federation of New York, said at the event that the attack came after months of rising Jew-hatred and, sadly, isn’t a surprise to the Jewish community.
