New York is failing to protect its Jewish citizens.

And if some two million Jews who live in New York cannot defeat an unapologetic Jew-hater like Zohran Mamdani, then we deserve to ask if we have learned anything whatsoever from the Holocaust.

photo: Ian Dooley/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Shmuley Boteach, a rabbi and author.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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It has been, to put it mildly, a very “interesting” summer for me.

Everywhere I went — in Europe and now even in my own home in the New York/New Jersey area — I was confronted with a rising tide of hostility, intimidation, and outright violence directed against me for one reason: I am a visible Jew in the public eye who fights for his people.

Since I lived in Western Europe as Rabbi at Oxford University for 11 years, I speak every summer in communities all over that continent, which is filled with millennia of Jewish pain.

In Vienna, I was physically assaulted in the very heart of St. Stephen’s Square by an Islamist mob who recognized me as I walked by a “Free Palestine” rally, something we saw in virtually every European city we visited. The assault became international news when I was surrounded by 10 Austrian police who treated me as an instigator rather than a victim, of which there is some truth.

I instigated the assault by wearing a yarmulke in a European capital, something that few Jews dare today, especially in the city where Hitler learned his antisemitism. The assault was brutal and humiliating, and the police, who forced my wife and I to go “give a statement” for two hours on Shabbat, only climbed down after, it seemed, they began to understand that this would become an international incident, heavily covered by global media. Once the story hit the front page of Euro News, with the headline, “Prominent US rabbi assaulted at rally in Vienna questions police actions,”

I received a letter of apology from a senior government minister. But Austria still hasn’t arrested my assailants. The case is ongoing.

On a European river cruise where I was doing research on the First Crusade and Second Crusade for my new book about the origins of annihilator antisemitism, my family and I were subject to a torrent of complaints from a group of Australians who raged about our alleged “Jewish special treatment” because we were the lucky ones who were served congealed tofu glue while they feasted nightly on sirloin steak. Yes, even that got their backs up. Imagine it: On a ship meant to bring people together, the old poison of antisemitism reared its head, dressed up in the language of grievance.

Everywhere I traveled, I saw the same sight: “Free Palestine” marches choking the streets of European capitals. From Paris to Frankfurt, from Basel to Toledo, masses of people waved Hamas flags and shouted slogans that demonized Israel, while ignoring the October 7th massacre. What shocked me most was not just the scale of the protests, but the way in which they normalized hatred of Jews in broad daylight, with police and politicians usually turning a blind eye.

Meanwhile, my inbox, my phone, and my social media feeds filled with death threats. Threats against me. Threats against my family. Threats that spilled over from the anonymity of the internet into the reality of my life. Being outspoken against Hamas and antisemitism has made me a target many times before, but this summer the intensity was different. The hate was more brazen, more unrestrained, more determined to silence me.

And now, shockingly, it has followed me back to New York, to the supposed sanctuary of Manhattan and one of its prestigious luxury towers, Waterline Square, where I was threatened with punitive legal action for a memorial service for Shani Louk, one of October 7th’s most famous victims. What Hamas did to Shani Louk’s body on October 7th was barbarism. What Waterline Square has done to her memory is obscenity.

On October 7, 2023, the Jewish People endured their darkest day since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists poured into Israel, murdering 1,200 innocents, mutilating bodies, kidnapping hostages, and unleashing carnage.

The most famous victim was Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli woman, full of vitality and promise. Murdered at the Nova Music Festival, she was desecrated by Hamas, her half-naked body paraded in the back of a pickup truck through Gaza. Billions saw the photograph which was later chosen by the Associated Press as the “Photograph of the Year.” It shocked the conscience of humanity. Shani became, arguably, the most infamously violated woman in the history of the world, the very symbol of Jewish suffering, inhumanity, and Hamas barbarity.

I dedicated a Torah to Shani a few months after her murder. Nissim Louk described the catastrophe that befell him in words no father should have to utter:

“My daughter, Shani Louk, was murdered by Hamas at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th. Her death, and the brutal way the murder was exploited by her killers, made her one of the most widely recognized victims of that dark day — the deadliest for the Jewish People since the Holocaust. The image of her body, paraded through the streets of Gaza, seared itself into the world’s conscience.”

The world remembers Shani Louk. But Waterline Square decided that her memory was a problem.

On the anniversary of Shani’s burial (her body, which was taken hostage, was found in Gaza by the IDF some eight months after her murder), I invited a grieving father and a tiny handful of friends to join me at Waterline Square to light candles and say prayers.

It was dignified. It was quiet. It was holy.

And yet, Waterline Square’s management and board turned grief into litigation. Attorneys Robert Braverman and Cecille Pell of Braverman Greenspun LLP sent me letters threatening punitive legal action unless I paid some extortionate fee, plus penalties and sanctions.

The threats were approved by the building’s manager, Jun Hu of First Residential, and Waterline Square board member Nancy Chen and board president Randi Wax. Most astonishingly, board member Dan Senor, who claims publicly to support Israel, stood silent.

It was grotesque. Hamas desecrated Shani’s body. Waterline Square desecrated her memory. Shani’s father, Nissim Louk, was appalled and published a rejoinder in Israeli media:

“On the anniversary of my murdered daughter Shani’s burial, Rabbi Shmuley was attacked for honoring her memory. How can this happen in New York City, home to over two million Jews? How can a memorial for a young woman murdered by terrorists be turned into a legal issue?”

“What happened that evening was not political. It was personal. A father was grieving. A friend offered him comfort. And a handful of people gathered to remember a beloved daughter. It was an act of humanity — met with cold bureaucracy and, sadly, what felt like prejudice.”

Waterline Square is the product of General Investment and Development Companies, a Boston-based developer that poured $2.3 billion into this three-tower complex. But its “luxury” veneer hides a darker record: In 2017, during construction, a worker shot and killed the site foreman on the 37th floor before killing himself. And, in recent years, an FBI sting arrested a woman accused of running a drug ring out of her Waterline Square apartment.

So murder and narcotics can happen in Waterline Square. But five Jews saying Kaddish for Shani Louk? That’s where the lawyers step in.

My attorneys are now preparing a lawsuit under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guarantees equal enjoyment of public accommodations without discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The statute is explicit:

• 42 U.S.C. § 2000a(a): “All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations… without discrimination…”

• 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-2(b)-(c): Prohibits intimidation, threats, and punishment against those exercising these rights.

As Fenton v. Dudley and Hamm v. Rock Hill confirm, retaliation is itself unlawful discrimination.

I am a visible Jew. My kippah, my beard, my tzitzit, my public life as “America’s Rabbi” make my identity unmistakable. To target me for hosting a memorial for Shani Louk is to punish me for being Jewish and for identifying openly with Israel.

This shameful saga, to which I offered Waterline an opportunity to respond in writing which they steadfastly refused, fits into a dark historical pattern. Jews have long been punished not only for living, but for mourning. In medieval Europe, rulers charged Jews exorbitant fees for burials — or denied them entirely. In Nazi Germany, Jewish funerals were forbidden; bodies were dumped into pits, families denied Kaddish.

Now, in Manhattan, a rabbi is threatened with dire legal consequences for hosting a tiny memorial for Shani Louk.

The methods change. The intent does not: Erase Jewish grief, silence Jewish memory.

Judaism is built on memory. “Zachor” (remember) is our most repeated commandment. To remember Amalek. To remember Egypt. To remember Sinai. And above all, to remember the murdered. To punish Jews with manufactured extortionate fees and financial penalties for remembering Shani Louk is to desecrate the victim. It is to side with Hamas in erasing Jewish lives.

And why does all this matter? Because New York City in general, and, in this case, Waterline Square and other luxury residences in particular, have revealed themselves as places where visible Jews are being forced to become invisible. In short, New York is becoming Europe.

Just go to Times Square and see if you can find a yarmulke. This year at the U.S. Open, where I usually see perhaps hundreds of them, I struggled to find two. Jews in New York are slowly becoming like the Marranos of Spain, in which invisibility can (God forbid) lead to self-extinction. And that’s why I’m fighting Waterline Square. I will not live in a New York they wish to create, one in which Jewish visibility, pride for Israel, and memory for its murdered martyrs, is punished. I am not a Jew who will ever conceal or hide his Jewishness.

On November 4th, New York may get its own version of Vienna’s Karl Lueger, the notorious antisemitic mayor of Vienna who was Hitler’s hero. If Far-Left candidate Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor of New York City, the Jewish community — and those concerned with Jewish interests — should be alert to several developments that could significantly impact their relationship with city governance.

Mamdani supports divesting New York City’s pension funds from Israeli-linked investments, aligned with the broader BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, though he hasn’t endorsed full divestment from Israel altogether. If implemented, this could reduce financial ties between New York’s public sector and Israel — destabilizing long-standing economic and political connections.

Mamdani abased himself with his disgusting handling of the controversial phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” He framed it as a symbolic call for Palestinian human rights, rather than what it actually is: a public call to murder Jews. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and multiple Jewish leaders condemned his comparison of the term to Jewish resistance during World War II.

While Mamdani purports to support Israel’s right to exist, he declined to denounce a Democratic Socialists of America resolution that advocates expulsion of members who are not “strongly anti-Zionist.” And he passionately supports BDS, which is the call for the economic destruction of Israel.

This is why Jews of New York and New Jersey must answer the call to fight for their people. And New York City itself must confront how, in its heart, a Jewish memorial was treated as a violation.

Hamas tried to erase Shani Louk by desecrating her body. They failed; she became the face of October 7th. Waterline Square tried to erase her memory by threatening a rabbi. They too will fail.

I will not be silent.

Shani Louk deserves to be remembered with dignity. Every prayer, every candle, every act of remembrance is defiance against erasure.

Waterline Square failed the test of decency. New York is failing the test of protecting its Jewish citizens. And if some two million Jews who live in New York cannot defeat an unapologetic Jew-hater like Mamdani, then we deserve to ask if we have learned anything whatsoever from the Holocaust.

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