New York City Police Issue Security Warning Ahead of Israel Day Parade in Manhattan

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) plans to closely monitor and surveil this weekend’s Israel Day Parade, which will take place amid an unprecedented surge in antisemitism around the world.

According to local news outlets, the NYPD’s intelligence and counterterrorism agencies believe there is a chance the event will be targeted by extremists or terrorists. While no specific threat was specified, the department said in a threat assessment report that it will employ security measures, including an immense police presence, normally reserved for large gatherings such as New Year’s Eve.

It has been estimated that upwards of 40,000 people will join the march, which was organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“The eyes and ears of New York play a vital role in protecting our city,” NYC Police Commissioner Edward Caban said this week in comments quoted by a local ABC affiliate. “So, if you see something that doesn’t feel right, please let a cop know.”

A historic rise in antisemitic hate crimes in New York City and the country is the cause of the department’s concern. According to an Algemeiner analysis of NYPD Crime Statistics data, between October and April, there were 285 antisemitic hate crimes in the city, a figure just slightly lower than the total recorded in all of 2022.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 8,873 antisemitic incidents— an average of 24 every day — across the US, amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data on antisemitic outrages in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.

Breaking down the numbers, the ADL found a dramatic rise in the targeting of Jewish institutions such as synagogues, community centers, and schools, with 1,987 such incidents taking place in 2023 — a 237 percent increase which included over a thousand fake bomb threats, also known as “swattings.”

Other figures were equally staggering, with assaults and vandalism rising by 45 percent and 69 percent, respectively, while harassment soared by 184 percent. Antisemitic incidents on college campuses, which The Algemeiner has continued to cover extensively, rose 321 percent, disrupting the studies of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.

The last quarter of the year proved the most injurious, the ADL noted, explaining that after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, 5,204 antisemitic incidents rocked the Jewish community. Across the political spectrum, from white supremacists on the far right to ostensibly left-wing Ivy League universities, antisemites emerged to express solidarity with the Hamas terror group, spread antisemitic tropes and blood libels, and openly call for a genocide of the Jewish people in Israel.

Such incidents occurred throughout the US. In California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. In a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio, a group of vandals desecrated graves at a Jewish cemetery. At Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious university, a faculty group shared an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose.

“Despite these unprecedented challenges, American Jews must not give in to fear,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in December. “Even while we fight the scourge of antisemitism, we should be proud of our Jewish identities and confident of our place in American society. It may not feel so right now, but we have many more allies than enemies. And we call on all people of good will to stand with their Jewish friends and neighbors. We need your support and your allyship.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.