Despite releasing a controversial statement that sparked outrage across the Jewish community, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani failed to placate radical anti-Israel activists, who met him on Wednesday with a relentless barrage of jeers, insults, and vitriol during an October 7 memorial ceremony in Manhattan’s Union Square, accusing him of betraying the “Palestinian struggle” since taking office.
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According to a report by the New York Post, hundreds of anti-Israel agitators showed up at the memorial wearing keffiyehs, with some waving Hamas banners. “Coward!” they shouted at Mamdani, “How could you let this happen?” Agitators escalated their chants, shouting “Shame on you” and “Zohran, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
Tamar Glezerman, a co-founder of “Israelis for Peace,” the progressive group that organized the memorial, described the gathering as a deeply distressing event. “Verbally, it was severe violence,” she said. “What is so disheartening is the complete refusal to listen. The only thing that mattered to them was that the word ‘Israelis’ appeared in our name. Nothing we actually said carried any weight for them.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Mamdani drew intense condemnation from local Jewish leaders and public officials after publishing a statement marking the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre. In his post, the mayor claimed that “the suffering neither began nor ended on that day,” and accused the Israeli government of committing an “ongoing genocide” in the Gaza Strip. Mamdani also alleged that tens of thousands of ‘Palestinians’ have been killed during the war, charging that the United States remains complicit through its continued military assistance to Israel.