Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) condemned in the “strongest terms” the anti-Israel protesters who physically assaulted Orthodox Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. 

“Mask-wearing protestors chanting anti-Semitic slogans in the middle of the most Orthodox Jewish community in the city is all about provocation and not about free speech. I applaud the NYPD for keeping order and condemn in strongest terms those who used antisemitic language and symbolism at this event,” Schumer said in a statement provided exclusively to Jewish Insider.

The statement comes as leading New York lawmakers are starting to speak out about the violent protest, organized by the New York chapter of the Pal-Awda group, also known as the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, to protest what it claimed was the continued sale of Palestinian land. Agitators gathered in the largely Orthodox neighborhood to shout at locals, calling them “settlers” and “Zionists,” and clashing with residents and a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) condemned the “vile and antisemitic rhetoric” as “unacceptable and unconscionable.”

“We will not tolerate the egregious behavior on display that was clearly designed to intimidate and harass Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood,” Jeffries said in a statement. “People of goodwill across our City and throughout the nation must continue to do everything possible to protect our Jewish brothers and sisters who are under assault and fight the cancer of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X, “Last night we saw protesters in Boro Park targeting Jewish New Yorkers with hateful rhetoric and antisemitic chants. This is unacceptable.” 

Hochul, a Democrat, added that she was “grateful” to the NYPD “for their diligent work keeping all New Yorkers safe.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said that it “should surprise no one that the pro-Hamas mob targeting Jews … has descended into violence.’”

“Violence is not a bug but a feature of the so-called ‘Free Palestine’ movement, which has no desire to free Palestinians from Hamas,” Torres continued.

Outside of New York, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a new co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, said, “Americans find this disgusting. I hope all who were violent are behind bars. Zero tolerance for Anti-semitism.” He also characterized the demonstrators as “pro-Hamas.”