Chanukah celebrates the courage of Jews determined to preserve their faith and identity in their homeland in the face of existential threat. On the first night of Chanukah, Jews around the world, and here in New York, emulated the spirit of the Maccabees by proudly and publicly celebrating the holiday after a horrific attack targeting Jews at a Chanukah event on Bondi Beach.
For centuries, Jews have resisted violence and persecution, often forced to flee, knowing that our resistance would not always end like the Maccabees. Long before the term “sanctuary city” existed, New York was a sanctuary to Jews fleeing hostile lands across the globe when few if any other places would take us in. Today, it doesn’t always feel so welcoming, in part because many of us are pressured to distance ourselves from the only other sanctuary we have ever known: Israel.
That pressure was on stark display last month when demonstrators surrounded Park East Synagogue during an event for an organization that helps Jews move to Israel. Protesters chanted violent slogans and threatened those inside. These were Jews practicing their faith, including making aliyah, which is central to their identity.
After years of escalating anti-Zionist rhetoric, the scene outside Park East Synagogue made one thing clear: Jews who express a connection to Israel are not welcome, even in New York, even in our own houses of worship.
The intimidation at Park East Synagogue and the massacre at Bondi Beach are not isolated incidents. They are part of the same global phenomenon in which anti-Zionist rhetoric increasingly fuels violent antisemitism, putting Jews with a spectrum of views on Israel at risk simply for being Jewish. What made the incident at Park East Synagogue especially chilling for Jewish New Yorkers was that it compromised a space meant to be inviolable.
Park East Synagogue was founded in 1890, providing safety and community for waves of Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. It has long stood as a sanctuary within a sanctuary. Its history reminds us of the critical role synagogues have played in helping Jewish newcomers establish roots here, and that all houses of worship play in supporting new New Yorkers.
By attacking Park East Synagogue and those inside, our neighbors struck at the heart of what makes New York a sanctuary city to begin with — the right of every person to live, worship, and express their identity in dignity and safety.
For a majority of Jewish New Yorkers, the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is a cornerstone of our Jewish identity. Those who violently condemn Israel’s importance to us are condemning the experience of Holocaust survivors who are still in our city; their children and grandchildren, like me; families who fled Soviet antisemitism in the 1970s and 80s, like mine; and descendants, like me, of Jews driven from Europe a century ago, welcomed in by synagogues like Park East.
When people suggest that Jewish New Yorkers should detach themselves from the only country founded explicitly as a Jewish sanctuary — mentioned more than 2,500 times in the Torah — because we have sanctuary here in New York is like telling every other New Yorker to forget their heritage and story. My sense of belonging in this city should not depend on suppressing a core part of my identity.
Much of the rhetoric political groups embrace here in New York and echoed globally has helped normalize the behavior we saw at Park East Synagogue and the deadly violence at Bondi Beach. When the mayor-elect refuses to unequivocally condemn that rhetoric or implies events in synagogues related to Israel are promoting violations of international law, promises to increase police protection ring hollow.
Jewish New Yorkers do not want our communities militarized. We want what every New Yorker wants: to feel safe entering our houses of worship and living openly as we are — whether we identify as Zionists or not.
Chanukah reminds us to unapologetically insist on who we are, proudly displaying the lights from our menorahs for all to see. Jews deserve to be embraced, just as all New Yorkers do, because of this insistence. Endorsing the Hidden Voices Jewish identity curricular resource in public schools is a step forward.
However, deepening the mayor’s and all New Yorkers’ own understanding of why Israel is central to the identity of most Jewish New Yorkers will go a long way toward accomplishing the big goals we want to achieve to help all of us be safe and thrive.
Treyger, a former councilman and public school educator, is the CEO of the JCRC-NY.
