Adams, Hochul address a huge Midtown rally

Thousands who gathered in Manhattan on Oct. 10 for a “New York Stands with Israel” rally heard a mother’s plea for the release of her son.

“We last spoke with him on Friday night,” Orna Neutra told the crowd of her 21-year-old son Omer. “In our last conversation, he was looking forward to a quiet, peaceful weekend after a stressful month protecting the border.”

Omer Neutra is believed to be held captive by Hamas in Gaza, his mom said.

A native of Long Island, Omer attended the Schechter School in Williston Park. He opted to spend a gap year in Israel before studying at Binghamton University.

The rally was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, city and state officials to the United Nations to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza near UN headquarters on the East Side.

Attendees waved Israeli flags and bore signs, including one that stated: “Never Again Is Now.”

“We are not all right when we see young girls pulled from their home and dragged through the streets,” Mayor Eric Adams said at the rally. “We are not all right when we see grandmothers being pulled away from their homes and children shot in front of their families. We are not all right when right here in the city of New York, you have those who celebrate at the same time when the devastation is taking place.”

“We are not all right when Hamas believes that they are fighting on behalf of something, and their destructive despicable action that [they] carried out. We are not all right when we still have hostages who have not come home to their family,” continued Adams, who has visited Israel several times.

“Everything is not fine. Israel has a right to defend itself, and that’s the right that we know,” he added. “Your fight is our fight.

Gov. Kathy Hochul told the crowd that she will fight antisemitism “everywhere it rears its ugly head.”

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, told the crowd that the Israel Defense Forces are up to the task. “In Israel, we don’t flee the battle. We run towards it because we are a people of heroes,” he said.

“Barbaric terrorists invaded our homeland,” he continued. “They massacred children in their beds. They exterminated revelers like the Nazi death squads in Europe. They violently dragged our grandfathers and grandmothers, babies and their mothers to Gaza, as hostages. They started a war not only with Israel but with civilization as a whole.”

“We have witnessed our ‘Never Again’ moment, and not in our worst nightmares could we have fathomed such horror,” he said. “But this moment of darkness will not only go down in history for its infamy, it will go down in history as the time that we, the Jewish people, showed the world that we will never be massacred again.”

Worldwide support for Israel could change. The world is quick to forget Jewish agony,” Erdan said, adding, “Your love is an integral part of our resilience.”

Hindy Poupko, senior vice president for community strategy and external relations at the UJA-Federation of New York, fought back tears as she spoke.

“We come here tonight with our hearts broken,” she said. “We gather here tonight overwhelmed with grief, anger, but also with resolve. We will remember Oct. 7 as the day that the largest number of Jews were murdered in a single day since the Holocaust.”

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, told JNS that Israel was forced into war. “We want peace,” he said. “But you have to go after people who have attacked you and want to destroy you.”

Manhattan resident Sarah Friedson told JNS that her thoughts are with the families of those killed, injured or taken hostage. She said she was impressed by the turnout for the event and that it is possible to find strength amid such tragedy.

“This is not the first time the Jewish people have faced evil trying to destroy us,” she said. “We hold within us the natural resilience and will to survive that our ancestors held over generations. We must remember that every group that has attempted to annihilate us is now nothing more than a page in the history books.”

“Hamas is destined for the same fate,” she added.