ByJEFFREY KAHN

JUNE 6, 2026 00:17

This past Sunday, New York’s Fifth Avenue filled with waves of blue and white amid one of the largest police security operations seen in years. For more than six decades, since starting as a small youth event in 1964, the annual Israel Day Parade has offered celebration, happiness, and open expressions of Jewish pride along with support for Israel in the heart of the Diaspora. This year’s focus on “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists” aimed to show strength amid rising antisemitism in the United States and beyond.

Yet under the waving flags and marching music, the 2026 event pointed to something more troubling. It revealed a new, enclosed reality that New York’s Jewish community is gradually facing.

Other cultural events receive standard crowd control. The Israel Day Parade now operates under high-threat protocols. Security on May 31 exceeded normal measures, as New York Police Department commissioner Jessica Tisch described it as the most extensive plan the NYPD has assembled, with the largest number of officers ever assigned to the detail.

Calling on the full city counterterrorism resources simply to let families walk a public street highlights a difficult truth that community leaders must not overlook.

My family ties to the city run deep. My father and grandfather were born in New York. My great-grandfather arrived after the Civil War, before 1900, in search of safety and chance in what became the largest and most active Jewish center outside Israel.

I marched in the parade as a child, and my own children did the same during our time in New York City. For generations the city served as a welcoming place where Jews moved confidently, secure and integrated into its character.

This past Sunday that long-held picture broke for me.

THE SCALE of the parade stood out. A record crowd of more than 50,000 marchers and viewers filled the route. Yet they advanced under tight security that looked like a full counter-terror effort against a serious, intelligence-supported risk.

Groups of Jewish children holding hands with parents and grandparents passed beneath a heavy visible presence: NYPD snipers on rooftops, tactical teams in body armor, helicopters overhead, drones in the air, and thousands of officers on every block.

While in New York for work, I observed the preparations and later watched the broadcast. A strong feeling of unease and concern stayed with me.

How can the Jews of this city fail to grasp the meaning? How have they grown used to it?

Watching families wave from behind barricades and armed units brought to mind the enclosed areas of earlier historical periods. The Jews of New York stood behind a wall of police protection in their own city, needed because of growing anti-Israel and anti-Western extremism that has spread through campuses and neighborhoods.

The physical barriers were concerning enough; the political signals were sharper. For the first time the city’s mayor skipped the event. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has joined other ethnic parades since taking office, kept his pledge to avoid the celebration of Israel and cited claims of “genocide.”

His absence sent a clear signal to a vocal anti-Western base that helped elect him.

In contrast, Commissioner Tisch, who is Jewish, chose to march. Alongside former mayor Michael Bloomberg she stated, “It’s the mayor’s decision not to march, and it is my decision to march proudly.”

While some praised her choice, it does not ease my mind. Tisch should not need to march under the current mayor. Serving under an administration that treats the mainstream Jewish community as outsiders raises questions of alignment. Mamdani claims to speak for all residents while distancing the city’s Jews.

WE MUST end the habit of ignoring these signs. The situation in New York echoes the early 1930s in Germany in troubling ways. Antisemitic acts are rising sharply across the United States. Armed guards at synagogues, schools, and centers have become a fixed routine.

When any group needs military-level protection to use a public street, equal standing is lost.

A combination of pressures is building. The outlook includes:

The economic and human toll: A drawn-out conflict with Iran is straining resources and placing American service members at risk overseas.
The political lame duck: With rising divisions, if President Donald Trump loses Congress in midterms he will face opposition as a lame-duck leader. In that space both extremes may seek a ready target and turn on Jews.
The northern front: Israel will likely need to act in southern Lebanon as it did in Gaza to stop rocket attacks, producing images that hostile media will use without context.

Such scenes on American screens, paired with economic strain at home, could intensify street reactions beyond current campus protests.

WHAT will prompt the Diaspora community to notice? What will show that armor on schools and snipers at parades signal the need for larger changes?

The Jews of New York now mark their ability to continue behind a line of officers. Yet those protections can be removed by one order from an unfriendly official.

How much time remains before the scene on Fifth Avenue spreads further? The situation is urgent, and it is time for American Jewry to recognize its position.

The writer is a global strategist and a strategic adviser at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. He can be reached at globalstrategist2020@gmail.com.