JNS
“We will be the generation to push back against hate,” Eric Adams told attendees at a Jewish heritage celebration at Gracie Mansion.
Jewish New Yorkers should stand their ground and fight for their city rather than leave in response to state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary win, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a Jewish heritage celebration at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
“You have the right to be in the city and anywhere in this country,” Adams told an audience of about 1,000 at the Tuesday night event on the mansion grounds in Carl Schurz Park. “History has shown that through time, you often have to find yourself leaving, fleeing.”
The celebration, typically held in May for Jewish Heritage Month, was rained out and rescheduled for the sweltering July evening, amid a citywide heatwave advisory.
“From the days of Moses to fleeing Spain when Christopher Columbus was leaving to the days of living in the Jewish quarters in Rome to the days of the Holocaust, you found yourself constantly leaving,” Adams told attendees.
Particularly after the Democratic primary for mayor, Adams, who is running for reelection, said that he has heard “many of my Jewish brothers and sisters saying they’re leaving.”
“I’m saying to you, we will run no more. We will stay and fight for the city that we love,” he told attendees. “We will not be the generation of fleeing and of leaving. We will be the generation to push back against hate. That’s what we must be.”
Adams likened rising antisemitism in New York City to the fabled frog, which is said to boil in water without realizing if the temperature is only increased a small amount at a time. (Although the notion is not scientific, Adams said he recalled it as a science experiment from elementary school.)
“We have turned the antisemitism degree up one degree at a time, and many of us have stood there and watched their hatred boil our cities and our country and even in the international community,” he said.
“The first thing we must acknowledge is that the heat of antisemitism has gotten too hot in our country, and it cannot continue to rise in degrees in our city where we have the largest Jewish population outside of Israel,” he told attendees.
“So I’m here to turn off the flame, to get the frog out of the pot and make sure that we don’t allow hate to live in our city in any form and in any way,” he said.
‘Not just words’
Adams, who faces a crowded field in November’s mayoral election, received chants of “four more years” from the crowd.
Jessica Tish, the New York City police commissioner who is Jewish, praised her boss and compared him to the biblical figure of Balaam, a gentile prophet who ends up blessing the Jews, from this week’s Torah portion. (It seemed that she didn’t mean the comparison to extend to rabbinic traditions of calling Balaam “the evil one.”)
“Mayor Adams did not grow up into the Jewish community, but to his core he understands it,” Tish told attendees. “He sees the richness of Jewish life, traditions, the sacred values and he honors it. Not just with words but with his actions.”
Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, also addressed attendees. He denounced calls for a “global intifada” and said that shared American and Jewish values must be emphasized around the world.
“The Jews of New York played a vital role in building this city, grounded in the shared values of the United States and the Jewish people: the values of freedom and democracy,” he said. “Throughout history, many enemies and leaders vowed to destroy the Jewish people. They are gone and we are still here.”
“No one will preach to us, and no one will bring the Jewish people to their knees,” he said.
Adams honored several attendees for their contributions to the Jewish community, including Joseph Shamie, Victoria Zirkiev, and Shulem and Chavy Greenberg on behalf of the charity Chesed 24/7, as well as the journalist Douglas Murray.
Accepting an award at the event, Murray decried the rise in Jew-hatred in New York City after Oct. 7.
“To have a man like Mayor Adams in New York, to continue to say what he’s said for so long—that we don’t have to tolerate intolerance, that we don’t have to give a free ride to people who would kill us, to be able to make a stand, that has had a huge impact on all New Yorkers, Jewish and non-Jewish,” Murray said.
“What Mayor Adams realizes, as many of us do, is that the problem with antisemitism is that once a society plays with it, it will play with every other dark prejudice next,” he said.
Among the guests braving the heat were Chassidim, Jewish social- media influencers and Upper East Side philanthropists, who ate barbecue surrounded by blooming blue hydrangeas. Israeli pop music played in the background.
A tented section of the lawn, strung with lights and a disco ball, featured a bar serving red and white wine and Schweppes seltzer. (A bartender told JNS a “majority” was opting for the seltzer.)
The event also featured a performance by Jewish singer Yoni Zigelboum, who sang “Am Yisrael Chai” as well as the aria “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s opera Turandot.
