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NYC’s Eric Adams, at mayors’ meeting in Greece, says antisemitism has become normalized
(New York Jewish Week) — Likening the growing threat of antisemitism to a frog that’s slowly boiled alive, New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke about the dangers of hate during his speech at the Mayor’s Summit Against Antisemitism in Athens, Greece.
The two-day summit, which began Wednesday, is a gathering of more than 50 mayors and municipal leaders from across the globe. It was created in partnership with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, a global coalition of 65 Jewish and interfaith organizations; the Center for Jewish Impact, an Israeli relationship-building organization, and the Jewish Federations of North America.
“We have never had so many local and municipal leaders in one place, sharing best practices and learning from each other on how to fight Jew-hatred,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa said in a press release.
During the first day of the conference, Adams was presented with the CAM Civic Leadership Award for “his dedicated commitment to fighting antisemitism and religious bigotry of all forms,” according to a press release.
In a video of his acceptance speech obtained by the New York Jewish Week, Adams cited the parable of the frog — which he said he remembered as a science experiment from his school days — in which a frog would immediately jump out of water that was too hot. However, if a frog was in water and the temperature rose gradually, it “would stay there until it boils itself to death.”
“That is where we are right now with antisemitism and hate that is pervasive across not only our country in Amerrica, but across the globe,” Adams said. “The temperature is just increasing so slightly that we’ve allowed it to normalize in every part of our lives. We’ve been accustomed to it.”
In Athens, Greece on Wednesday, @NYCMayor Adams spoke about how the temperature of antisemitism is ‘increasing so slightly that we’ve allowed it to normalize in every part of our lives.’
‘We’ve been accustomed to it,’ he said. ‘It has become popular.’ pic.twitter.com/eKgTjRLq6q
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) November 30, 2022
He also called social media “the flame that continues to fuel the hatred that you are seeing.”
“Those who hate no longer are isolated in the corners of their bedrooms or homes or in their clubs,” Adams said. “They have now combined together to create the hate that we are experiencing.”
“Those who are perpetrating hatred should not have five million followers on social media,” he added, “and those of us standing up for what’s right only have 100,000.”
Adams also shared another childhood anecdote about how he used to box as a kid. He said he would do well during training but often get beaten up in the ring. His coach told him that he leaves his “best fight” in the gym.
“This is the gym,” Adams said, referring to the room, whose audience included the mayors of Vienna, Paris and Albuquerque. “This is not the ring. The ring is on the ground in our communities.”
Adams also talked about how the Community Security Initiative, the Jewish security organization, helped lead to the arrest on Nov. 20 of two men who wanted to shoot up a synagogue in New York City.
“It was due to a Jewish organization that was monitoring the social media channels and chatter that they were able to give an early warning sign to connect with the law enforcement community,” Adams said. “That’s the coalition and coordination that we need.”
He also spoke about how his “Breaking Bread” initiative — in which people from different ethnic groups sit down for dinner together — can be used to fight hate. Adams brought the program up last week in a closed-door meeting with New York City’s Interfaith Security Council.
Referring to New York’s large Jewish population, he referred to the Big Apple as the “Tel Aviv of America.”
He added that the key to success in fighting hate “lies with the mayors.”
“Mayors are the cities,” Adams said. “We solve the national problems on the local level. This award is just the beginning of what I want to show in my accomplishmen as the mayor of the City of New York on how we fight and defeat antisemitism, and all of the anti-hate that we see in our lives now.”
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.