Thousands of marchers assembled in Manhattan Sunday morning, taking to the streets and flooding the Brooklyn Bridge for hours as they crossed into the borough of Brooklyn amid chants of "No Hate, No Fear," the theme of the assembly in the works for days now.
An estimated 25,000 people converged on Manhattan's Foley Square and made their way to Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza, where they heard from community leaders and organizations that urged Jewish pride and unity in the face of escalating anti-Semitism.
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Sponsors included the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, the Anti-Defamation League, the Board of Rabbis of New York, the American Jewish Committee, and the UJA-Federation of New York.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) each spoke Sunday in Manhattan on streets packed with people holding signs and spontaneously breaking into song. "While we're here today in the spirit of solidarity and love, government must do more than just offer thoughts and prayers – government must act," he said, adding that he would be proposing a new law for the state of New York that categorizes hate crimes as domestic terrorism.
Thousands of New Yorkers marched across the Brooklyn Bridge today to send a message: We have no tolerance for anti-Semitism and hate.
Cowardly acts meant to spread fear and create division will always fail. #NoHateNoFear #StandTogether pic.twitter.com/N5rJhIVOrR
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 6, 2020
"Today, we do not simply walk over a bridge, we begin building better bridges between all denominations of Jews, and between Jews and non-Jews," said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York. "Building bridges means putting aside our differences, religious and political, and calling out anti-Semitism and all forms of hate wherever we see it. The purpose of today's march is to loudly and publicly proclaim that an attack on a visibly Orthodox Jew is an attack on every Jew, an attack on every New Yorker and an attack on every person of goodwill."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
