At least 206 Jewish anti-Israel protesters were arrested Monday after hundreds rushed the New York Stock Exchange and staged a sit-in outside the Manhattan landmark, police said.
Scores of pro-Palestinian protesters wearing red shirts stormed toward the building on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan — then chained themselves to the doors just before the stock market’s opening bell at 9:30 a.m., footage shows.
A handful of demonstrators, who hail from the Jewish Voices for Peace group, could be seen removing their jackets as they set up shop outside the building — jackets they wore in a possible bid to conceal their anti-Israel attire and thwart any attempt to stop them ahead of time.
The group immediately started screaming “Free Palestine” and quickly brandished signs reading “Jews for Palestine’s freedom” as they blocked off the building and demanded the US government “fund FEMA, not genocide.”
Jewish anti-Israel protesters were arrested Monday after hundreds of rowdy demonstrators stormed toward the New York Stock Exchange. G.N.Miller/NYPost
One protester is carried out during the exchange. G.N.Miller/NYPost
At one point, they dressed the iconic bronze Fearless Girl statue in one of their shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Stop arming Israel.”
The demonstrators, who hail from the Jewish Voices for Peace group, staged the sit-in outside the building on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan on Monday. G.N.Miller/NYPost
The protesters screamed “Free Palestine.” G.N.Miller/NYPostRoughly 200 protesters were nabbed by cops, the group’s political director, Beth Miller, told The Post, with police later confirming that 206 were booked.
Cops could be seen cuffing multiple protesters and hauling them away on Department of Correction buses.
The crowd is believed to have swelled to as many as 500 people before dispersing at noon, cops added.
“Today there were 500 Jews who came here, in front of the New York Stock Exchange, to shut down business as usual on Wall Street with a message to say the US government should stop sending weapons to the Israeli government and stop profiting from the genocide of Palestinians,” Miller told The Post.
Signs included calls to “fund FEMA, not genocide.” G.N.Miller/NYPost“The reason we were here, specifically as Jews, is because the Biden administration and the Israeli government often say this genocide they are committing is in the name of Jewish safety and we reject that with every fiber of our being.”
She added: “We were taught in our Jewish tradition that every single life is a universe and that to destroy a single life is to destroy an entire universe.”
The NYSE declined to comment on the protest.
Arrested protesters were loaded onto Department of Correction buses. G.N.Miller/NYPostJVP is a nonprofit group that touts itself as “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world” with allegedly 300,000 supporters.
Founded in 1996, the group calls for a free Palestine, with its Columbia University chapter notably suspended last year over the anti-Israel protests that erupted on campus.
The Anti-Defamation League has slammed the JVP as “a radical anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activist group that advocates for the boycott of Israel and eradication of Zionism.”
In its 2023 federal tax returns, the JVP reported revenue of nearly $3.32 million, according to ProPublica, with the group saying the bulk of its income comes from individual contributions.
Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
