Members of the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace and other Palestinian activists are arrested while protesting President Joe Biden’s position on Israel during his visit to Manhattan on February 7. The protesters briefly shut down traffic along 5th Avenue in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Louis Keene, Jacob KornbluhFebruary 7, 2024

Forming a line across 5th Avenue, scores of Jewish New Yorkers in matching black T-shirts tried to block President Biden’s motorcade as it passed through the Upper East Side. They held signs that called the war in Gaza a genocide and urged the president to call for a ceasefire.

About three blocks away, a humbler Jewish cadre delivered a strikingly different message. Their signs said, “Thank you Biden,” and “Thanks for being the good guy.”

The demonstrations around the president’s three-day fundraising trip to New York — his first visit to the city since Oct. 7 —  revealed the Jewish community’s division over the war as it enters its fifth month.

Pressure on Biden to call for a ceasefire has been building on the Democratic party’s progressive flank for months, buttressed by activist Jewish organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace that have seen interest soar during the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden’s steady support from the heavily Democratic, pro-Israel Jewish mainstream tends to be less visible on the street. But the dozens of Israeli expats who gathered at the corner of 5th Avenue and 82nd Street saw the president’s visit as an opportunity to make sure their voices were heard, too.

“Those that are sitting in the tunnels, in the dark for 124 days, their voices cannot be heard,” said Susan Lax, an Israeli native who splits her time between Tel Aviv and the Upper West Side. “Our voices to Biden today were helping the voices of those be heard.”

Wednesday’s JVP-led protest outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, near the home where Biden’s first fundraiser was held, resulted in the arrest of about 60, the organization said.

The rally was one of several Jewish Voice for Peace demonstrations since Oct. 7 that have resulted in arrests. Some 300 were arrested at an Oct. 18 ceasefire protest at the Capitol.

“As Jewish New Yorkers we want to make crystal clear that President Biden is not welcome in our city while he continues to fund and arm the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” Jay Saper, a Jewish Voice for Peace spokesperson, said in a statement. 

The Biden Administration is currently involved in negotiations with Israel, Hamas and Qatar for a ceasefire that would require the release of the remaining hostages and humanitarian pauses.  Hamas responded to the proposal with demands Israel described as nonstarters, among them a permanent ceasefire. Biden said on Tuesday that the terms set by Hamas were “a little over the top.” 

The president is using the New York trip to bolster his campaign funding going into what is expected to be a prolonged race against former President Trump, a prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination.

In addition to the Linden fundraiser, he has planned events at the homes of Steven Rattner, chief executive of the firm that manages Michael Bloomberg’s fortune, and at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, for a fundraiser hosted by Ramon Tallaj, chair of the nonprofit SOMOS Community Care.

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