NEW YORK — Several hundred protesters led by leftish Jewish groups gathered in New York City on Monday to demand an end to the war in Gaza.
The protesters carried signs that said, “Stop ethnic cleansing,” “Never again is now,” and “Stop starvation.”
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, the city’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, led the crowd in chants of “No more.”
“Yesterday on Tisha B’av, we mourned a destruction that happened to the people of Israel. Today we mourn a destruction being caused by the State of Israel, and we say no more,” Lander said. “We gather at a moment of profound crisis. Palestinians in Gaza are enduring a catastrophic rolling destruction that is happening in our name and we say no more.”
Lander describes himself as a progressive Zionist. He partnered with Zohran Mamdani, a harsh Israel critic, during Mamdani’s campaign for the Democratic Party mayoral primary, which Mamdani won last month.
Other speakers included Morriah Kaplan, the interim director of IfNotNow, political activist Ruth Messinger, writer Peter Beinart, Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah, Audrey Sasson, director of Jews for Economic and Racial Justice, and Gili Getz, the head of the Israelis for Peace activist group.
Some in the crowd wore Palestinian apparel, such as shirts with the Palestinian flag, keffiyehs, and kippahs with watermelons, a symbol of the movement. Some protesters carried a sign with a Star of David, a swastika, and images of emaciated children in Gaza and the Holocaust.
The protest, called “Jews Say: No More,” took place at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, across from the Trump International Hotel.
The demonstrators demanded that the Trump administration apply pressure on Israel to halt the war and increase humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“We need to keep up the pressure and get more food and aid into Gaza NOW before more Palestinians die of starvation,” T’ruah said in a statement. “This event is a mass mobilization of American Jews who object to our government’s continued support for the policy of starvation and refusal to leverage its immense power to compel the admission of humanitarian aid.”
At the end of the planned demonstration, dozens of the protesters gathered on the steps of the Trump International Hotel, chanting, beating drums, and reciting a prayer for Palestinians killed in the conflict.
Police handcuffed and detained the demonstrators to clear them from the hotel entrance and sidewalk.
The NYPD told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that all 41 individuals taken into custody were issued summonses, which are used to inform members of the public that they have been charged with violating a city regulation.
The protest highlighted divides among New York’s Jews over the war in Gaza, a split exacerbated by recent, contested reports of starvation caused by the conflict.
A poll released last week by the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel political group, found that 66% of the city’s Jews maintained “strong support” for Israel, while 31% did not.