Police and protesters in New York are girding for an evening of potential confrontation in Brooklyn on Monday, amid fallout from dueling protests last week surrounding a visit by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli politician.
Police arrested one man and are investigating the harassment of two women following demonstrations in Crown Heights on Thursday, when Ben-Gvir visited Chabad’s headquarters on Eastern Parkway.
Video that went viral from the evening showed a large group of young Orthodox Jewish men following a woman while chanting “Death to Arabs” in Hebrew. Some kicked the woman, who was accompanied by an NYPD officer, and another threw a traffic cone at her before the officer got her into a police car and drove off.
The encounter followed a protest promoted by Within Our Lifetime, the hardline pro-Palestinian group that routinely calls for Israel’s destruction and has staged disruptive protests throughout the city. Footage on social media shows protesters chanting slogans including “We don’t want no two state, we want all of it” and “Judaism yes, Zionism no, the State of Israel has got to go!”
“None of this is acceptable, in fact, it is despicable,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement on Sunday. “New York City will always be a place where people can peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing, or threatening. Hate has no place in our city, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
Now, another pro-Palestinian demonstration targeting Crown Heights has been called for Monday night. An online flier for that protest says, “Zionism is not welcome here” while another post has called for attacks on Jews. A pro-Israel group has vowed to oppose those protests.
The protests come as Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, completes a series of stops in the New York City area, including at a number of Chabad events in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon and evening as part of his first visit to the United States while in office. Ben-Gvir’s visit has also drawn protests from Jewish leaders over his extremist views and rhetoric.
According to a spokesperson, he attended an afternoon prayer service at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the Chabad Hasidic movement, then spoke at another nearby Chabad institution. On Friday, he visited the gravesite of the movement’s late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
On Thursday night, he had returned to 770, which includes spaces for Jewish prayer and study, for a celebration of Jewish study. (He would later end his night at a Midwood kosher restaurant.) Ahead of the celebration, at around 9:40 p.m., according to police, protesters began demonstrating at the site, remaining there for about two hours.
Yaacov Behrman, who does public relations for Chabad and lives in Crown Heights, tweeted that protesters also shouted, “We don’t want Zionists here” and “Resistance is justified.”
“Your hatred and your slogans weren’t directed at a political figure—someone most people in the community didn’t even know was here—but at all Jews: those going to synagogue, shopping in the area, passing by, or simply out for an evening walk,” Behrman wrote. “Let’s be clear: this was not about free speech or peaceful demonstration. This was an antisemitic, Hamas-supporting rally. It was meant to intimidate, to provoke, and to spread fear.”
Some area residents joined in a counter-demonstration, and a portion of them formed the group captured on the viral video harassing the woman.
On Monday, the Associated Press reported that the woman, who chose to remain anonymous, is a neighborhood resident who said she was not involved in the protest but decided to see what was happening after hearing police helicopters. She covered her face with a blue scarf to avoid being filmed.
“As soon as I pulled up my scarf, a group of 100 men came over immediately and encircled me,” the woman told the AP, saying she was left with bruises and mentally shaken.
Other photos shared online show a different woman, who was wearing a keffiyeh, or Palestinian scarf, bleeding heavily from her head. A social media post identified her as an anti-Zionist Jewish Israeli.
A Chabad spokesperson, Rabbi Motti Seligson, denounced the actions of both the protesters and counter-protesters, noting that the neighborhood has previously been the site of antisemitic protests. (Crown Heights was the site of riots in 1991 that began after a car in Schneerson’s motorcade hit a child in the neighborhood, killing him; over days of violence that followed, rioters killed one Jewish man.)
“The violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism — outside a synagogue, in a Jewish neighborhood, where some of the worst antisemitic violence in American history was perpetrated, and where many residents share deep bonds with the victims of Oct. 7 — did so in order to intimidate, provoke, and instill fear,” Seligson said in a statement.
“We condemn the crude language and violence of the small breakaway group of young people; such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values,” he added. “The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point.”
Six people were taken into custody at the scene, five of whom were released. The sixth — a man police identified as Oscar Vidal, 28, of Bayonne, New Jersey — was arrested on multiple counts of assault, criminal mischief and harassment. Police said he physically assaulted two different men at around 10:40 p.m.
Adams said on X that police are investigating “a series of incidents that began when a group of anti-Israel protesters surrounded the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters — a Jewish house of worship — in Brooklyn.” Adams’ post specifically mentioned two women who were assaulted by counter-protesters.
On Monday, a flier announcing another pro-Palestinian demonstration popped up online, reading, “Crown Heights Run it Back!! We will flood the streets of Crown’s Heights to inform them Zionism is not welcome here. Free Palestine.” According to the flier, protesters are set to meet at 7 p.m. Monday in a different neighborhood. The meeting point is outside Barclays Center, which is about a 45-minute walk from 770 Eastern Parkway.
In addition, an Instagram account called Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee called for attacks on Jews in Crown Heights in anticipation of that protest.
“Waiting for the sleeping giant that is Caribbean Brooklyn, who have long suffered abuse and oppression at the hands of the racist Zionist Chabad Lubavitch to rise against them,” the post says. “Black people in Brooklyn are violently exploited via rents to then feed their genocidal land grabs in Palestine. What would happen if Caribbean Brooklyn brought that vybz kartel Barclays energy with ferocity and tore down these f—ing monsters!?”
Jewish groups in Crown Heights are preparing for more demonstrations — and telling community members to stay away.
An alert from Shomrim Crown Heights, a volunteer neighborhood security group, warned of a demonstration starting at Barclays Center that will “[move] towards Crown Heights,” but said that the “NYPD has assured us that Crown Heights will be protected and that the agitators will not pose a threat.”
The flyer warns: “Do not go to the Barclays Center or towards Grand Army Plaza seeking any confrontation.”
A notice from a Chabad yeshiva that has circulated online cited “notices about a protest in our neighborhood this evening by haters of Israel” in sending the same message.
“Do not show up there, and do not, God forbid, get drawn into clashes,” the notice read. “Remember that they’re trying in every way to draw our people into unrest… in order to incite against us.”
But some Jewish counter-protesters have vowed to be there — including Betar, the militant right-wing Zionist group that frequently shows up to counterprotest at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
“Brooklyn Monday PM pogroms are planned,” Betar wrote on X Sunday night. “We urge Jews to come to the streets and meet us at 7 pm at Barclays. We will march. Hamas has given them orders to have blood in NYC!”
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