Mayor Zohran Mamdani was berated and booed at an Oct. 7 candlelight vigil in Union Square on Wednesday night by anti-Israel protesters who believe he turned his back on Palestinian causes.
Hizzoner, with a candle in hand, was heckled by the angry mob, including some waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, who marched from City Hall to crash the event meant to honor Jewish victims killed by Hamas terrorists — and Palestinians in the subsequent war.
“You coward!” some of the keffiyeh-clad agitators shouted at Hizzoner. “How do you let this happen?”
“Zohran you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” the protesters yelled in unison.
Other chants included “Mayor Mamdani take a stand. Stop the sale of stolen land” and “Shame on you.”
Mamdani remained stoic despite the disruptions as he stood alongside ex-City Comptroller Brad Lander during the solemn memorial.
Tamar Glazerman, co-founder of Israelis for Peace, called the Union Square vigil “a difficult night, heckled by a few hundred counter-protesters.”
“Verbally, it was very violent,” she said, adding “what I think is unfortunate is the lack of listening.”
“Because the only thing that matters is that we had Israelis in our name,” Glazerman said. “Not a word that we said had mattered.”
A woman who attended the candlelight service said she “felt it was emotionally difficult.”
“It was like, are they even listening to what’s happening over here?,” the woman who declined to give her name told The Post.
“Because if they were listening, they might even hear that actually might even [hear] some points of agreement.”
The vigil attendee slammed the angry anti-Israel protesters for having “zero nuance when lots of nuance is needed.”
“So it was extremely painful and very jarring personally,” she said of the hate-filled demonstrators.
The chaos at the vigil, organized by Israelis for Peace, came after an earlier protest outside City Hall, in which the crowd of about 125 demonstrators criticized Mamdani’s “betrayal” of Palestinian causes since taking office.
“Mayor Mamdani take a side, justice for Palestine,” the crowd chanted, with one protester holding up a picture of the mayor rolling out the red carpet for Netanyahu in response to the prime minister’s visit to New York last month.
After remaining stone-faced at the candlelight vigil, Mamdani headed uptown to Hinds Hall by Ayat, a Michelin Guide-featured Palestinian restaurant, to meet with Palestinian families, according to sources.
Hizzoner marked the third anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack with a statement that largely attacked Israel for committing “war crimes” in an “ongoing genocide” — sparking outrage from Jewish advocates who said Mamdani was “weaponizing” the tragedy.
Less than a quarter of Mamdani’s written statement shared Wednesday morning was dedicated to the “unthinkable loss” suffered when “Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others” on Oct. 7, 2023 — with a majority of his words devoted to his ongoing attacks against Israel.
“The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said, citing Hamas statistics as he decried the Palestinian casualties of the war launched in response to the terrorist attack.
Mamdani’s slanted statement comes amidst continued criticism that he is making Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe with his relentless attacks on Israel.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, accused Mamdani of weaponizing the memory of the victims to push his own agenda and undermine the Jewish community in a scathing post on X.
“Not once do you say ‘Jews,'” Greenblatt wrote. “On Oct. 7, Hamas-led attackers murdered civilians, committed sexual violence, mutilated bodies and took hostages.”
“You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual anti-zionist talking points,” he said.
Similarly, the Israeli United Nations Ambassador slammed Mamdani for trying to “hijack the only day we have for the victims of survivors.”
“He’s trying to hijack the day to talk about attacking Israel,” Ambassador Danny Danon told The Post, adding “It’s like on 9/11 you talked about victims and al-Qaeda terrorists.”
“He’s dangerous and sophisticated,” the ambassador said of Hizzoner. “He will go to both ceremonies and try to say he feels for both losses of life.”
Mamdani’s evening itinerary after the vigil — moving from the disrupted memorial to a Palestinian restaurant gathering — underscored the balancing act that has drawn fire from all sides.