Biden Condemns ‘Abhorrent’ Acts of Anti-Semitism in New York

On one train, according to a video on social media, a man led a small group in chanting, ‘Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist.’

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House on May 31, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Joe Biden has condemned recent acts of anti-Semitism in New York that have included anti-Israel activists targeting an exhibit in memory of those whom Hamas killed at a music festival in its terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The horrific acts of anti-Semitism this week—including a demonstration celebrating the 10/7 attack, vandalism targeting Jewish homes, attacks on Jewish faculty at college campuses, and harassment of subway riders—are abhorrent,” the president posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on June 14.

“Anti-Semitism doesn’t just threaten Jewish Americans. It threatens all Americans, and our fundamental democratic values.”

On June 12, pro-Hamas activists hurled red paint at the homes of top leaders at the Brooklyn Museum, including its Jewish director, and also splashed paint across the front of diplomatic buildings for Germany and the Palestinian Authority, prompting a police investigation and condemnation from city authorities.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in a post on X, shared images of a brick building splashed with red paint with a banner hung in front of the door that called the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, a “white-supremacist Zionist.”

“This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable anti-Semitism,” the mayor posted.

Mr. Adams expressed sympathy to Ms. Pasternak and other museum board members whose homes were defaced.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who lives close to the Brooklyn Museum, praised the museum on the Senate floor as an institution whose leaders are “deeply concerned with issues of social justice” and said the pictures of the director’s home filled him with grief and anger.

The paint attacks occurred the same week that pro-Palestinian groups held a large demonstration outside a New York City exhibition memorializing victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival.

The group Within Our Lifetime called the tribute to the victims “Zionist propaganda” and dismissed the music festival, where hundreds died, as “a rave next to a concentration camp.”

Following a June 10 rally at Union Square Park, hundreds of people flooded into a subway station, some waving flags and banging on drums, to get on trains headed downtown.

On one train, according to video footage on social media, a man led a small group in chanting: “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist” to other passengers, followed by, “This is your chance to get out.”

Video footage circulating on social media shows a confrontation that purportedly happened earlier in the day, when a man in Union Square was recorded shouting, “I wish Hitler was still here. He would’ve wiped all you out.”

It wasn’t clear whether he was involved in the protest. A group of people waving Israeli flags was also in the park at the time.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.