{"id":323504,"date":"2026-08-17T22:24:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/323504\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T22:24:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T22:24:57","slug":"adrienne-adams-heckled-at-rowdy-brooklyn-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/323504\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrienne Adams heckled at rowdy Brooklyn forum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s running mate, former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams<\/a> was heckled by pro-Israel protesters during a Brooklyn Democratic Party forum last week, The Post can reveal. <\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and state Attorney General Letitia James were also on-hand for the event at the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in Mill Basin hosted by scandal-plagued former local party boss<\/a> Frank Seddio.<\/p>\n

\u201cJews are second-class citizens,\u201d pro-Israel activist Stephanie Benshimol shouted at Adams, who some Dems fault with not doing more to combat antisemitism when she served as council speaker.<\/p>\n

Adams, a former Queens councilwoman who was speaker from 2022 to the end of December, refused to take questions from The Post before she scampered out of the building.<\/p>\n

The Kings County Democratic Committee pulled their endorsement of Gov. Kathy Hochul for a short time after she tapped Adrienne Adams as her Lt. Governor pick earlier this year. William C Lopez\/NYPost<\/p>\n

When Jeffries, a longtime Brooklyn rep, threw his support behind Adams, Benshimol started walking around the room, wanting to be heard on the issue dear to many Jewish New Yorkers. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just have a question,\u201d she said. \u201cDon\u2019t tell me to go home.\u201d But the crowd booed her, telling her she was \u201cout of order,\u201d and began forcing her out of the room.<\/p>\n

The fracas came as Adams appeared to be trying to mend fences with Brooklyn Dem bigwigs.<\/p>\n

Hochul, who is running for a second, full four-year term in November, picked Adams as her running mate in February, in the first all-female major-party gubernatorial ticket in state history.<\/p>\n

But the lieutenant governor pick was met with a temporary revolt from Brooklyn party bosses<\/a>, with state Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn and other leaders of the King County Democratic Committee initially withdrawing their support of Hochul in light of the announcement.<\/p>\n

Last year, Adams received a puny 6% of the first-round mayoral primary vote in the Assembly district surrounding the Jefferson Democratic Club, where she spoke to a crowd of about 50 attendees on Thursday.<\/p>\n

She was introduced by James, a former Brooklyn City Council member, who said that Adams has proven \u201cthat you can be a fighter and builder at the same time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Political activist Stephanie Benshimol interrupts Hakeem Jeffries as he speaks in support of Adrienne Adams. William C Lopez\/NYPost<\/p>\n

But while James spoke, protesters outside were heard shouting, \u201cAdrienne Adams go home\u201d and \u201cAdrienne Adams is an anti-semite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Pearl, a blogger and member of the so-called \u201cNew Yorkers First\u201d organization who was among the anti-Adams protesters, told The Post he also didn\u2019t approve of her because of what she did to \u201cthis neighborhood\u201d during the migrant crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis neighborhood got hit very badly by the migrant crisis. They drained our resources. They were all over the neighborhoods. It was a very serious thing, and nobody listened to us,\u201d Pearl said.<\/p>\n

Outside the club, Benshimol told The Post she was just trying to ask Adams, \u201cwhat are you going to do for all the antisemitism and the safety of the Jews in New York?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the largest population of Jews outside of Israel,\u201d Benshimol said, \u201cand Adrienne Adams wouldn\u2019t answer my question. And they threw me out \u2026 And then everyone clapped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seddio, who offered kosher hot dogs to the protesters, insisted that there was \u201cnobody more supportive of Israel than this particular Democratic club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hedy Aldina of Brooklyn speaks to a reporter and holds up a sign during a protest by New Yorkers First members against Adams. William C Lopez\/NYPost<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of our elected officials has been supportive of Israeli issues,\u201d he told The Post.<\/p>\n

Adams has been move visible on the campaign trail in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

She rallied with Hochul in Westchester County last week, signaling a possible attempt to shore up support in Democratic strongholds before campaign season begins in earnest, with less than three months before the November election.<\/p>\n

A Siena College poll released last week<\/a> shows Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Hochul\u2019s Republican opponent, within 10 points of the incumbent governor.<\/p>\n

Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said Monday: \u201cFormer Speaker Adams is campaigning across New York and reminding voters of the contrast between her record of holding ICE accountable, fighting antisemitism and cracking down on hate crimes, and investing in childcare and early education \u2013 and the Blakeman ticket\u2019s \u2018100% MAGA\u2019 agenda of letting Trump raise New Yorkers\u2019 costs and threaten their public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s running mate, former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams was heckled by pro-Israel protesters during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[446,98,100,99,2132,68,426,57,9,24,13895,63,58],"class_list":["post-323504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-adrienne-adams","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-democrats","tag-exclusive","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny-governor-election-2026","tag-nyc","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323504","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=323504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}