March against anti-Semitism brings thousands to streets of New York

Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews alike took to the streets of New York City on Sunday, marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in a dramatic show of unity after a string of bloody anti-Semitic attacks in the region.

Chanting "No Hate, No Fear," a crowd estimated at 25,000 from New York, New Jersey and points well beyond assembled at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan and then crossed into Brooklyn, braving a January chill and gathering under heavy police presence. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the throng and announced $45 million in additional state funding to beef up security around houses of worships, schools and other religious institutions, days after a man wielding a machete stormed into a rabbi's home in Monsey, New York, sending five people to the hospital. 

"We are here to voice our concerns and our Jewish pride," said Anne Marie Bennoun president of the Temple Sinai synagogue in Tenafly, New Jersey, who came with a group of 20 congregants.

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The "Solidarity March," organized by a broad swath of Jewish groups, kicked off at 11 a.m. in New York and made its way toward Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. The multicultural crowd included a contingent from Ohio and a bishop from Brooklyn, as well as Jews from across Rockland County and North Jersey, sites of two mass anti-Semitic attacks over the past five weeks. 

"An attack on any house of worship is an attack on all houses of worship," said Ismael Claudio, bishop of the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ in Brooklyn, who was at Cadman Plaza. "I'm standing with my Jewish brothers and sisters. Today [it's] them; tomorrow, might be us."  

Elena Procario-Foley, a professor of religious studies from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, came as well. "We have to demonstrate sometimes with our feet what we teach in the classroom," said Procario-Foley, who leads a class on the Holocaust and trips for students to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. "I want to be able to tell my students, 'Look at what's been going on.'" 

The attack in Monsey last weekend targeted a Hanukkah celebration. One victim, Josef Neumann, remains unconscious in the hospital after being wounded in the head. That incident followed a Dec. 10 shooting rampage at a kosher market in Jersey City. The assault left three civilians, one police officer and the two shooters dead, after an hours-long gun battle.

The onslaught joined a growing list of recent assaults on Jewish sites across the U.S. The deadliest came in Pittsburgh in 2018 when 11 people were killed by a white supremacist gunman. In April of last year, a worshiper was gunned down at a Poway, California, synagogue, followed by a July shooting that targeted a Miami temple.

"We are here to send a clear message," Devorah Halberstam, a Hasidic Jewish activist whose son was gunned down on the bridge in 1994, told the crowd on Sunday. "We are proud of who we are. Today, we are all Monsey."

New York police estimated the crowd size at 25,000, said Michael Miller, chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. 

Waking under crisp, clear skies, the procession was at turns defiant, joyous and somber. Marchers sang and prayed in Hebrew and waved signs declaring "Jewish Lives Matter." A group of Franciscan priests was on hand, as well as members of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, an interfaith group of Muslim and Jewish women. Drivers crossing the bridge honked their support. 

Participants came from Cleveland, Canada, Boston and Philadelphia, organizers said. 

"We are here because we believe strongly about the need to create awareness of anti-Semitism," said Carole Benson of Englewood, New Jersey, a member of the National Jewish Council of Women. "It affects not only us, but everyone."

The event drew support from a host of organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the inter-denominational New York Board of Rabbis. The sponsors represented a range of Jewish sects and relationships with Israel. 

YAFFED, Young Advocates for Fair Education, said it supported the event. The Rockland County- and New York City-based non-profit aims to improve secular education in ultra-Orthodox schools, known as yeshivas.

Even IfNotNow, a group that opposes Israeli policies in Palestinian territories and often breaks with positions espoused by more moderate Jewish organizations, said its members would participate: "The fight against anti-Semitism is part of the fight for collective liberation for all people," the group said Friday in a Facebook post.

A host of dignitaries joined the march, including Cuomo, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Along with the Jersey City and Monsey attacks, New York and New Jersey have experienced a string of smaller anti-Semitic incidents. Brooklyn Jews were harassed, assaulted and robbed while walking on the street and riding public transit; a Garden State synagogue was smeared with graffiti. A Christmas Day confrontation at a kosher restaurant in Teaneck, New Jersey didn't qualify as a bias crime, local officials said, but still rattled residents. 

On New Year's Day, Cuomo directed New York State Police to increase patrols and security in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods statewide. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has also asked state police to increase patrols at synagogues and Jewish community centers.

Speakers at the march took aim at social media platforms such as Facebook for not doing more to curb hate speech online, as well as U.S. politicians cited for their anti-Israel rhetoric. Listeners cheered calls for stricter penalties for hate crimes.

"They’ve been trying to kill us for thousands of years," said one marcher, Oriel Reuben.

"We’re not about buildings. Our God is inside of us," he said, gesturing toward his heart. "Our God is here. When you have God inside you they can’t kill you. 

Unity across Judaism's sometimes fractious denominations was a major theme of the day. The attackers in Jersey City and Monsey targeted Orthodox Jews but Sunday's march seemed to represent the range of Jewish spiritual life. 

Dani Volerich of Norwood, New Jersey, who was carrying her jackapoo dog Zeb at the march, said she was motivated to come because her son, who she described as not particularly religious, was accosted in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on New Year's Eve. "He was called a dirty Jew. He was very upset and angry,"  she said.

Rabbi Mendy Shushat, of the ultra-Ortthodox Chabad Latin Center in Manhattan, said he was there "to express Jewish pride and certainty that we will always be here standing strong. We are not threatened."