Protesting the Sale of Stolen Land in Boro Park

After Israeli real estate group announced an event On Tuesday, February 18, 2025, to sell land in occupied Palestine, held in Boro Park. The goal of this sale, as advertised, was to help build Israel by purchasing these lands, which, as in previous sales by this company, are located in settlements. These settlements aim to ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians and divide their neighborhoods, further deepening the crimes of occupying Palestinian land.

This announcement sparked significant outrage among activists and individuals in New York, including many anti-Zionist Jews living in the neighborhood. The backlash was particularly strong because the event was promoted within an Orthodox Jewish community. The organizers had held similar events in Jewish synagogues during previous sales, giving the misleading impression that such actions align with Judaism.

Palestinian advocacy groups, together with other pro-Palestinian organizations, announced that they would protest this act of selling stolen land. On the other hand, hundreds of anti-Zionist Jews turned to the rabbis of the neighborhood where the event was supposed to take place. Upon learning about the event, the rabbis immediately intervened and ordered it to be canceled, stating, “We cannot allow support for Zionism in any way within my synagogue.”

But the story did not end there. When the colonist settler Dov Hikind heard that the event had been canceled, he took to his social media pages to express outrage, claiming, “We cannot allow this to happen.” He began a series of accusations against pro-Palestinian groups, reviving the old Zionist tactic of alleging that their sole purpose in coming to Boro Park was to terrorize the community—a claim that is entirely false. The pro-Palestinian groups had explicitly announced their intention to protest the event, not the Jewish neighborhood, which includes a significant number of anti-Zionist Jews who stand firmly in opposition to Zionism.

Dov Hikind then announced that he had secured an alternative location for the event and began inciting fear within the community, spreading rhetoric that “terrorists are coming to Boro Park.” On the other hand, he also announced, alongside the Beter group—a known extremist organization that incites violence against Muslims and Palestinians in particular—that they would hold a counter-demonstration.

At the new location, at 6 PM on a bitterly cold day, when the protesters arrived, they found themselves surrounded by Zionists who attempted to attack them. After calling in more police, part of the group safely arrived at the designated protest site. However, when the delegation of anti-Zionist Jews arrived, they were attacked by the Zionists once again. An elderly rabbi, who had attended in a wheelchair and endured hours in the freezing cold, was surrounded by Zionists attacking him until a crowd of Palestinians intervened to stop it. The Zionists then took away hats and tore them into pieces. Similar incidents occurred every time someone arrived at or left the designated protest site.

The crowd of anti-Zionist Jews chanted against Dov Hikind, shouting, “Dov Hikind, shame, shame! You do not speak in the Jewish name!”

On social media, videos circulated showing the extreme settlers chanting and assaulting both Palestinians and the Jewish protesters. A few individuals required hospitalization due to the Zionist attacks.

Rabbi Dovid Feldman addressed the protest in an interview, explaining why Jewish people are standing up against this injustice.

Rabbi back who attended the rally said “This is nothing new,” he said. “All the brave people who are standing up for justice are used to it. Just as they have done in Palestine—igniting the fire and then crying that they need to defend themselves—the same thing happened here. The next day, all the politicians who are still receiving money from the AIPAC lobby denounced the so-called attack on Jewish people while ignoring the facts on the ground: the attack on a Muslim mosque one block away, and other assaults on Palestinians, including one with a metal pole.”