The protest focused “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” which was marketed on-line as coming to Manhattan on Might 5 as a part of a tour that additionally consists of Flatbush and Queens. The Park East Synagogue hosted the same occasion final November, which prompted a fierce demonstration from pro-Palestinians simply steps away from the home of worship’s entrance — and spurred requires protest buffer zones to maintain protesters at bay sooner or later.
The web site for the Might 5 occasion invited attendees to “listen to experts” on matters together with aliyah, greater schooling in Israel and funds in Israel, and listed areas together with Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Netanya, Raanana, Modiin, Herzliya, Haifa, Nahariya, Rishon LeZion, Ashdod, Beersheva and Ashkelon.
The NYPD didn’t allow members of the media to go the barricades that locked down East 67th Avenue between Lexington and Third avenues. However Intercept reporter Noah Hurowitz posted on X, alongside supplies from contained in the occasion, that he entered and noticed “at least one table advertising properties in the West Bank, including Kfar Eldad and Karnei Shomron.”
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s workplace mentioned earlier than the protest that the mayor was “deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank.”
“These settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians,” a Metropolis Corridor spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
On the identical time, Mamdani’s workplace mentioned the town was dedicated to making sure entry to the synagogue.
“Our administration has also been clear that we are committed to ensuring safe entry and exit from any house of worship, and that such access never be in question while all protesters are able to exercise their First Amendment rights,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Policing the protest
In a separate assertion on protest policing, Metropolis Corridor mentioned NYPD can be on website “to ensure the safety of protestors and guarantee those interested in entering the synagogue can do so.”
Law enforcement officials had been on the scene after 5 p.m. on Might 5, organising a virtually three-block perimeter forward of the scheduled 6:30 p.m. demonstration. The lockdown saved East 67th Avenue between Lexington and Third avenues largely inaccessible, together with to members of the media.
The closest protest space to the synagogue was at East 67th Avenue and third Avenue, the place pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters had been held in opposing pens throughout the intersection.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
A second protest website shaped exterior Hunter School, at Lexington Avenue and East 68th Avenue, the place pro-Palestinian demonstrators stuffed either side of the intersection. The roadway remained open to visitors for a part of the protest, however officers struggled to maintain demonstrators behind barricades as the gang grew.
At one level, protesters pushed barricades into the roadway. Officers moved in from behind, splitting up the gang, whereas different officers on the entrance pushed demonstrators again towards the sidewalk.
Earlier than the march, tensions flared on the Lexington Avenue website when a passerby started heckling protesters. A number of punches had been thrown earlier than police broke up the confrontation. Different agitators additionally appeared within the crowd, together with a streamer whom officers escorted right into a yellow cab.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Protesters later marched from Lexington Avenue towards third Avenue. A scuffle broke out as demonstrators reached barricades close to East 66th Avenue and Third Avenue.
As one barricade got here down, a number of demonstrators and officers fell to the bottom. Police mentioned water was thrown at officers from a constructing alongside the demonstration route.
Adelina Sadik, one of many demonstrators, mentioned one barricade got here down as demonstrators and police pushed close to each other.
“One of the barricades got knocked out,” Sadik mentioned. “There was a bunch of people trying to push back on the left side. And then, like, people start falling, and the cops fall with them too.”
The NYPD mentioned demonstrators surrounded an officer at East 66th Avenue and third Avenue, and that pepper spray was used to disperse the gang.
Sadik mentioned she felt spray hit her face and mouth as folks fell round her. As she spoke to New York News afterward, she mentioned her mouth was nonetheless burning; one other demonstrator sat on the bottom close by, pouring water into his eyes.
“All of a sudden, I just feel a spray in my face,” Sadik mentioned. “My mouth started tingling, and it felt numb.”
Sadik mentioned she didn’t instantly notice she had been pepper-sprayed.
“Now my mouth is, like, burning, like, on fire,” she mentioned. “I feel it in my throat, too.”
Sadik known as the policing extreme and mentioned the town’s response mirrored unequal remedy of Muslim and pro-Palestinian communities.
“I think it’s excessive,” she mentioned, arguing that officers had been utilizing the truth that the occasion was held at a synagogue to justify broad police protections.
Police mentioned one officer suffered a leg harm and was taken to a hospital.
However, the demonstration ended with no arrests, in accordance with the NYPD.
A preview of perimeter policing
The police response got here after weeks Metropolis Council handed a regulation directing the NYPD to develop plans for managing demonstrations close to homes of worship, following earlier protests exterior synagogues, together with Park East, that drew public condemnation.
Instantly following the November protest at Park East, then-Mayor Eric Adams issued an govt order directing the NYPD to determine buffer zones for protests close to homes of worship. Upon taking workplace weeks afterward Jan. 1, new Mayor Mamdani nullified that order and others issued by Adams following his September 2024 legal indictment.
The Council overwhelmingly handed Intro. 1-B to direct the NYPD to create protocols for buffer zones close to spiritual websites, however although Mamdani didn’t veto it, he additionally refused to signal it into regulation. Consequently, the invoice turned regulation robotically 30 days after its passage with out the mayor’s signature, as per the town constitution.
However the NYPD plan required beneath the regulation was nonetheless in improvement, making Tuesday’s protest an early street-level preview of how the division could use perimeter-based policing round spiritual establishments.
The laws was softened earlier this 12 months after discussions with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Earlier variations would have required mounted safety perimeters at each entrance and exit of homes of worship in sure instances, with these perimeters extending as much as 100 ft and requiring boundaries similar to police tape or barricades.
The amended invoice dropped the 100-foot requirement, eliminated the barrier mandate and as a substitute directed the police commissioner to provide plans outlining issues for when and the way buffer zones could also be used.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
On Tuesday night time, NYPD appeared to make use of a broader discretionary mannequin earlier than that formal plan was full: protecting protesters away from the synagogue entrance, directing teams onto surrounding avenues, separating opposing demonstrators with pens and barricades, and blocking close by streets.
The perimeter appeared to maintain protesters farther from Park East than the 100-foot buffer zone initially proposed earlier than the invoice was revised.
Council Speaker Julie Menin mentioned on the time that the modifications had been designed to offer the NYPD flexibility and protect protest rights.
Tuesday’s demonstration was organized partly by Pal-Awda, an anti-Zionist activist group that mentioned it was protesting the true property occasion, not the synagogue itself.
On Tuesday, pro-Israel counterprotester Ronen Levy, of Queens, mentioned he was not a member of Park East however got here as a result of he believed Jewish New Yorkers had a shared accountability to guard synagogues.
“Jewish people don’t have to be members directly of a synagogue,” Levy mentioned. “You could just walk in if you want to pray the morning prayers, the afternoon prayers, or the evening prayers, you could just walk in and be and be a member and pray, because we’re all one.”
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Levy mentioned he supported the NYPD perimeter and backed restrictions round protests at homes of worship and colleges, so long as they utilized equally to synagogues, mosques and church buildings.
“You want to protest? You want to assemble on the street, you want to assemble in a park, you want to assemble in a center or Columbus Circle? You’re more than welcome,” Levy mentioned. “But to protest in a shul or a mosque or a church, that’s unethical, that’s un-American.”
He additionally defended holding the true property occasion in a synagogue, saying such occasions are geared toward Jewish communities all for Israel or aliyah.
“It came to where they do it in the shul, because it’s a lot easier to get Jewish people to come down, because it’s a Jewish congregation,” Levy mentioned. “Most people in synagogues, they want to go live in Israel.”
A younger Jewish man who mentioned he had been praying inside Park East and was filming the pro-Palestinian protesters from the sidelines informed New York News he felt threatened by the chants close to the synagogue.
“I feel a bit intimidated as a Jew,” he mentioned, citing chants of “resistance is justified” close to the synagogue. “That’s really something that’s very dangerous.”
He additionally mentioned he believed police didn’t have sufficient officers on website, claiming protesters had pushed down barricades shortly earlier than extra NYPD officers arrived.
The protest came about the day after a rash of antisemitic hate crimes in Queens, the place vandals spraypainted swastikas and different hateful messages at Jewish neighborhood facilities and close by properties.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Tova, a Pal-Awda organizer who mentioned she was a part of the group’s “stolen land” marketing campaign, mentioned the protest was geared toward the true property expo, not at Jewish worshippers.
“They intentionally hide these real estate sales, which are selling stolen Palestinian land inside of synagogues,” she mentioned. “We’re not protesting the synagogue.”
She mentioned the proof was that activists weren’t demonstrating there throughout peculiar spiritual providers.
“Do you see protests at the synagogue every Saturday?” she mentioned. “The only time there’s protests at the synagogue is when they’re having a stolen Palestinian land sale inside the synagogue.”
Tova rejected the necessity for brand new protest restrictions and argued the town ought to as a substitute examine the land-sale occasions.
“There is no need to stop us from protesting,” she mentioned. “We wouldn’t be there protesting if they weren’t doing these illegal activities.”
She added that protesters had a constitutional proper to be inside “sight and sound” of the occasion they had been protesting, which, she mentioned, the NYPD’s perimeter prevented.
On the Lexington Avenue protest website, witness Daryl Ali, who described himself as a grassroots activist unaffiliated with any group, mentioned he noticed the sooner altercation involving two folks and accused one individual of continuous to throw punches whilst others tried to separate them.
“You still have one party still throwing punches at everybody that’s trying to tell them to stop,” Ali mentioned. “You can clearly see who the aggressor is.”
Ali criticized the police for showing to take away the alleged assailant from the gang with out making a direct arrest.
“There’s no reason for them to let somebody go after they just completely assaulted random people in the crowd,” he mentioned.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Rabbi David Feldman of Neturei Karta Worldwide, an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group, spoke to New York News as the gang started to disperse and mentioned the protest was being wrongly framed as antisemitic.
“People are claiming that speaking up against these events is antisemitic in any way, or an affront on religious venues, and this is totally misleading,” Feldman mentioned. “This is about condemning ongoing crimes.”
Feldman argued that conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism harms Jewish folks.
“When you conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, when you conflate Judaism with Zionism, you’re making a statement,” he mentioned. “You are saying that all Jews, God forbid, are behind these crimes.”
He mentioned his group got here to indicate that Israel doesn’t signify all Jews.
“The State of Israel does not represent all Jews, and certainly does not represent the Jewish religion,” Feldman mentioned.
The demonstration ended with out arrests, however the conflict underscored the unresolved query on the middle of the town’s new protest-management legal guidelines: how far police can go to guard entry to homes of worship with out pushing demonstrators out of sight and sound of the occasions they’re protesting.
Comparable Israeli actual property occasions have drawn protests throughout the nation from teams against the sale of land or properties in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.
A current U.N. human rights workplace report accused Israel of violating worldwide regulation within the occupied West Financial institution, together with East Jerusalem, by sustaining a discriminatory system through which settlements play a central position, citing land confiscations, expanded Israeli management and the displacement of farming and herding communities.
Israel has repeatedly rejected allegations of systemic discrimination or apartheid, saying settlements and safety measures are essential for its residents’ security and that the West Financial institution’s standing ought to be resolved by way of negotiations.
