{"id":221893,"date":"2026-05-06T13:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221893\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:17:18","slug":"protest-over-israeli-real-estate-event-at-manhattan-synagogue-tests-nypd-perimeter-strategy-as-officer-hospitalized-demonstrators-pepper-sprayed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/221893\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest over Israeli real estate event at Manhattan synagogue tests NYPD perimeter strategy as officer hospitalized, demonstrators pepper-sprayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The protest targeted \u201cThe Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026<\/a>,\u201d which was advertised online as coming to Manhattan on May 5 as part of a tour that also includes Flatbush and Queens. The Park East Synagogue<\/a> hosted a similar event last November, which prompted a fierce demonstration from pro-Palestinians just steps away from the house of worship\u2019s entrance \u2014 and spurred calls for protest buffer zones to keep protesters at bay in the future.<\/p>\n

The website for the May 5 event invited attendees to \u201clisten to experts\u201d on topics including aliyah, higher education in Israel and finances in Israel, and listed locations including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Netanya, Raanana, Modiin, Herzliya, Haifa, Nahariya, Rishon LeZion, Ashdod, Beersheva and Ashkelon.<\/p>\n

The NYPD did not permit members of the media to pass the barricades that locked down East 67th Street between Lexington and Third avenues. But Intercept reporter Noah Hurowitz posted on X, alongside materials from inside the event, that he entered and saw \u201cat least one table advertising properties in the West Bank, including Kfar Eldad and Karnei Shomron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u2019s office said before the protest that the mayor was \u201cdeeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians,\u201d a City Hall spokesperson said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n

At the same time, Mamdani\u2019s office said the city was committed to ensuring access to the synagogue.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOur administration has also been clear that we are committed to ensuring safe entry and exit from any house of worship, and that such access never be in question while all protesters are able to exercise their First Amendment rights,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Policing the protest<\/p>\n

In a separate statement on protest policing, City Hall said NYPD would be on site \u201cto ensure the safety of protestors and guarantee those interested in entering the synagogue can do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police officers were on the scene after 5 p.m. on May 5, setting up a nearly three-block perimeter ahead of the scheduled 6:30 p.m. demonstration. The lockdown kept East 67th Street between Lexington and Third avenues largely inaccessible, including to members of the media.<\/p>\n

The closest protest area to the synagogue was at East 67th Street and 3rd Avenue, where pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters were held in opposing pens across the intersection.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell \"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

A second protest site formed outside Hunter College, at Lexington Avenue and East 68th Street, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators filled both sides of the intersection. The roadway remained open to traffic for part of the protest, but officers struggled to keep demonstrators behind barricades as the crowd grew.<\/p>\n

At one point, protesters pushed barricades into the roadway. Officers moved in from behind, splitting up the crowd, while other officers at the front pushed demonstrators back toward the sidewalk.\n<\/p>\n

Before the march, tensions flared at the Lexington Avenue site when a passerby began heckling protesters. Several punches were thrown before police broke up the confrontation. Other agitators also appeared in the crowd, including a streamer whom officers escorted into a yellow cab.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell \"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Protesters later marched from Lexington Avenue toward 3rd Avenue. A scuffle broke out as demonstrators reached barricades near East 66th Street and Third Avenue.\n<\/p>\n

As one barricade came down, several demonstrators and officers fell to the ground. Police said water was thrown at officers from a building along the demonstration route.\n<\/p>\n

Adelina Sadik, one of the demonstrators, said one barricade came down as demonstrators and police pushed near one another.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the barricades got knocked out,\u201d Sadik said. \u201cThere was a bunch of people trying to push back on the left side. And then, like, people start falling, and the cops fall with them too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYPD said demonstrators surrounded an officer at East 66th Street and 3rd Avenue, and that pepper spray was used to disperse the crowd.\n<\/p>\n

Sadik said she felt spray hit her face and mouth as people fell around her. As she spoke to amNewYork afterward, she said her mouth was still burning; another demonstrator sat on the ground nearby, pouring water into his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, I just feel a spray in my face,\u201d Sadik said. \u201cMy mouth started tingling, and it felt numb.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Sadik said she did not immediately realize she had been pepper-sprayed.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNow my mouth is, like, burning, like, on fire,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel it in my throat, too.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Sadik called the policing excessive and said the city\u2019s response reflected unequal treatment of Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s excessive,\u201d she said, arguing that officials were using the fact that the event was held at a synagogue to justify broad police protections.\n<\/p>\n

Police said one officer suffered a leg injury and was taken to a hospital.\n<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the demonstration ended with no arrests, according to the NYPD.\n<\/p>\n

A preview of perimeter policing<\/p>\n

The police response came after weeks City Council passed a law directing the NYPD to develop plans for managing demonstrations near houses of worship, following previous protests outside synagogues, including Park East, that drew public condemnation.<\/p>\n

Immediately following the November protest at Park East, then-Mayor Eric Adams issued an executive order<\/a> directing the NYPD to establish buffer zones for protests near houses of worship. Upon taking office weeks later on Jan. 1, new Mayor Mamdani nullified that order and others <\/a>issued by Adams\u00a0following his September 2024 criminal indictment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Council overwhelmingly passed Intro. 1-B<\/a> to direct the NYPD to create protocols for buffer zones near religious sites, but though Mamdani did not veto it, he also refused to sign it into law. As a result, the bill became law automatically 30 days after its passage without the mayor\u2019s signature, as per the city charter.<\/p>\n

But the NYPD plan required under the law was still in development, making Tuesday\u2019s protest an early street-level preview of how the department may use perimeter-based policing around religious institutions.<\/p>\n

The legislation was softened earlier this year after discussions with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Earlier versions would have required fixed security perimeters at every entrance and exit of houses of worship in certain cases, with those perimeters extending up to 100 feet and requiring barriers such as police tape or barricades.<\/p>\n

The amended bill dropped the 100-foot requirement, removed the barrier mandate and instead directed the police commissioner to produce plans outlining considerations for when and how buffer zones may be used.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, NYPD appeared to use a broader discretionary model before that formal plan was complete: keeping protesters away from the synagogue entrance, directing groups onto surrounding avenues, separating opposing demonstrators with pens and barricades, and blocking off nearby streets.<\/p>\n

The perimeter appeared to keep protesters farther from Park East than the 100-foot buffer zone originally proposed before the bill was revised.\n<\/p>\n

Council Speaker Julie Menin said at the time that the changes were designed to give the NYPD flexibility and preserve protest rights.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s demonstration was organized in part by Pal-Awda, an anti-Zionist activist group that said it was protesting the real estate event, not the synagogue itself.\n<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, pro-Israel counterprotester Ronen Levy, of Queens, said he was not a member of Park East but came because he believed Jewish New Yorkers had a shared responsibility to protect synagogues.<\/p>\n

\u201cJewish people don\u2019t have to be members directly of a synagogue,\u201d Levy said. \u201cYou could just walk in if you want to pray the morning prayers, the afternoon prayers, or the evening prayers, you could just walk in and be and be a member and pray, because we\u2019re all one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell \"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Levy said he supported the NYPD perimeter and backed restrictions around protests at houses of worship and schools, as long as they applied equally to synagogues, mosques and churches.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to protest? You want to assemble on the street, you want to assemble in a park, you want to assemble in a center or Columbus Circle? You\u2019re more than welcome,\u201d Levy said. \u201cBut to protest in a shul or a mosque or a church, that\u2019s unethical, that\u2019s un-American.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also defended holding the real estate event in a synagogue, saying such events are aimed at Jewish communities interested in Israel or aliyah.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came to where they do it in the shul, because it\u2019s a lot easier to get Jewish people to come down, because it\u2019s a Jewish congregation,\u201d Levy said. \u201cMost people in synagogues, they want to go live in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A young Jewish man who said he had been praying inside Park East and was filming the pro-Palestinian protesters from the sidelines told amNewYork he felt threatened by the chants near the synagogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a bit intimidated as a Jew,\u201d he said, citing chants of \u201cresistance is justified\u201d near the synagogue. \u201cThat\u2019s really something that\u2019s very dangerous.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He also said he believed police did not have enough officers on site, claiming protesters had pushed down barricades shortly before more NYPD officers arrived.\n<\/p>\n

The protest took place the day after a rash of antisemitic hate crimes in Queens<\/a>, where vandals spraypainted swastikas and other hateful messages at Jewish community centers and nearby homes.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell \"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Tova, a Pal-Awda organizer who said she was part of the group\u2019s \u201cstolen land\u201d campaign, said the protest was aimed at the real estate expo, not at Jewish worshippers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey intentionally hide these real estate sales, which are selling stolen Palestinian land inside of synagogues,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not protesting the synagogue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

She said the proof was that activists were not demonstrating there during ordinary religious services.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you see protests at the synagogue every Saturday?\u201d she said. \u201cThe only time there\u2019s protests at the synagogue is when they\u2019re having a stolen Palestinian land sale inside the synagogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tova rejected the need for new protest restrictions and argued the city should instead investigate the land-sale events.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no need to stop us from protesting,\u201d she said. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be there protesting if they weren\u2019t doing these illegal activities.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

She added that protesters had a constitutional right to be within \u201csight and sound\u201d of the event they were protesting, which, she said, the NYPD\u2019s perimeter prevented.\n<\/p>\n

At the Lexington Avenue protest site, witness Daryl Ali, who described himself as a grassroots activist unaffiliated with any organization, said he saw the earlier altercation involving two people and accused one person of continuing to throw punches even as others tried to separate them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou still have one party still throwing punches at everybody that\u2019s trying to tell them to stop,\u201d Ali said. \u201cYou can clearly see who the aggressor is.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Ali criticized the police for appearing to remove the alleged assailant from the crowd without making an immediate arrest.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason for them to let somebody go after they just completely assaulted random people in the crowd,\u201d he said.
\n\"\"Photo by Lloyd Mitchell\n<\/p>\n

Rabbi David Feldman of Neturei Karta International, an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group, spoke to amNewYork as the crowd began to disperse and said the protest was being wrongly framed as antisemitic.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are claiming that speaking up against these events is antisemitic in any way, or an affront on religious venues, and this is totally misleading,\u201d Feldman said. \u201cThis is about condemning ongoing crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feldman argued that conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism harms Jewish people.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, when you conflate Judaism with Zionism, you\u2019re making a statement,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are saying that all Jews, God forbid, are behind these crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his group came to show that Israel does not represent all Jews.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State of Israel does not represent all Jews, and certainly does not represent the Jewish religion,\u201d Feldman said.\n<\/p>\n

The demonstration ended without arrests, but the clash underscored the unresolved question at the center of the city\u2019s new protest-management laws: how far police can go to protect access to houses of worship without pushing demonstrators out of sight and sound of the events they are protesting.<\/p>\n

Similar Israeli real estate events have drawn protests across the country from groups opposed to the sale of land or homes in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.\n<\/p>\n

A recent U.N. human rights office report accused Israel of violating international law in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by maintaining a discriminatory system in which settlements play a central role, citing land confiscations, expanded Israeli control and the displacement of farming and herding communities.<\/p>\n

Israel has repeatedly rejected allegations of systemic discrimination or apartheid, saying settlements and security measures are necessary for its citizens\u2019 safety and that the West Bank\u2019s status should be resolved through negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The protest targeted \u201cThe Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,\u201d which was advertised online as coming to Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[87348,4660,61204,87349,75,84,83,9,24,1057,63,103,26582,11142,87350,44795,42069,87351,466,87352,82],"class_list":["post-221893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-buffer-zone-law","tag-first-amendment","tag-houses-of-worship-security","tag-israeli-real-estate-event","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-council","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-park-east-synagogue","tag-pepper-spray","tag-police-perimeter","tag-pro-israel-counterprotest","tag-pro-palestinian-protest","tag-protest-policing","tag-upper-east-side","tag-west-bank-settlements","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}