
PROTEST
“Both of them should be arrested,
both of them should be
charged with hate crimes,” Kagan
said of Zavadsky’s attackers.
“And both of them should
never be released, especially
the next morning.”
“An attack against one person
is an attack against everyone,”
he noted. “It was not a disagreement
against Middle East
politics, it was not a roundtable
discussion, who was right and
who was wrong. It was pure,
pure hate.”
The rally was initially set
to take place at the Bay Ridge
Foot Locker, but was soon after
switched to Bensonhurst.
Protesters ended up marching
from Bay Parkway along 86th
Street to the Bensonhurst Foot
Locker, at the intersection with
Bay 26th Street.
Vernikov spokesperson
Tova Chatzinoff-Rosenfeld said
that the protest was moved
from Bay Ridge out of respect
for the neighborhood’s large
Palestinian and Muslim population.
“We didn’t want to infl ame
tensions,” she said, also noting
violent threats Vernikov
and the protesters had received
on social media, owing largely
to the image of people in IDF
hoodies, which attendees were
encouraged to wear, marching
into a Palestinian neighborhood.
COURIER L 26 IFE, JANUARY 7-13, 2022
The IDF is notorious internationally
for brutally enforcing
Israel’s occupation of
Palestine.
Bay Ridge activist group
Fight Back Bay Ridge posted on
social media that the planned
rally amounted to “provocation
or even terrorism” against
the neighborhood’s sizable Palestinian
and broader Muslim
community.
“Storming into Bay Ridge,
with our large and vibrant Palestinian
and Muslim community,
wearing IDF hoodies is an
act of provocation or even terrorism,”
the group said. “GTFOH.”
Zavadsky said that while
he wished the rally could have
taken place in Bay Ridge, he
understood why it needed to be
moved. “If there does not need
to be a confl ict, why start a confl
ict,” he said. “It’s the United
States, everyone should enjoy
what they want to believe in.
You’re supposed to embrace
yourself, not be scared.”
“Whatever is happening
between Israel and Palestine
should happen between Israel
and Palestine, it should not
happen in the United States,”
Zavadsky said. “We all came
to the United States wanting
peace. My parents came from
the former Soviet Union, they
were trying to escape all of
this, they didn’t expect this to
happen in the United States.”
A signifi cant contingent
of counter-protesters, many
aligned with Neturei Karta,
showed up in Bensonhurst:
Bay Ridge resident Jay Brown,
who watched the rally from
the street, estimated that the
crowds of protesters and counter
protesters were about the
same size, with the counterprotesters
possibly numbering
slightly higher. The Neturei
Karta contingency followed
the pro-IDF protesters on the
other side of the street, waving
Palestinian fl ags and bellowing
chants like “IDF, shame
on you,” “IDF, terrorists,” and
“from the river to the sea, Palestine
will be free.”
Jews are one of the groups
that have borne the greatest
brunt of a spike in hate crimes
since the onset of the pandemic.
The NYPD recorded
144 incidents of antisemitic
bias in the fi rst three quarters
of 2021 (fourth quarter data is
not yet available), according
to its Hate Crimes Dashboard.
That’s up from 93 incidents recorded
in the fi rst three quarters
of 2020.
The trend may, unfortunately,
continue in 2022: on
Sunday, two days into the New
Year, a Hasidic man in Williamsburg
was shoved to the
ground and beaten bloody with
sticks, police said. Cops are
still searching for two suspects
in that case.
Zavadsky says his injuries
have mostly healed, though his
eye is still slightly bruised and
has blood in it. He says going
forward, he will not be intimidated
from wearing his IDF
sweatshirt on the street despite
what happened to him.
“No one is going to stop me,”
he said. “I’m not going to take
it off for anyone. They wouldn’t
take it off if I told them to take
it off, why should I?”
Councilmember Inna Vernikov leads a march against anti-Semitism on
86th Street in Bensonhurst on Jan. 2. Councilmember Inna Vernikov
“It’s the United
States, everyone
should enjoy
what they want to
believe in.”
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