Demonstrators, Counterprotesters, and Police Converge Near East 67th Street Synagogue

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A Tuesday night demonstration on the Upper East Side ended with one NYPD officer hospitalized, pepper spray deployed into a crowd, and a stretch of Lexington Avenue blocked off for hours — the result of a planned protest that drew roughly 100 people to the location.

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The gathering took shape outside Hunter College at East 68th and Lexington before moving south toward Park East Synagogue, where an event marketing residential properties in Israel and the West Bank was underway inside. Police had erected barricades along East 67th Street earlier in the day, anticipating the crowd.

Demonstrators chanted slogans including “There is only one solution, intifada revolution” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — phrases that pro-Israel groups have long characterized as calls for violence. A smaller group of counterprotesters assembled across the perimeter, separated by metal pens and a heavy police presence. According to amNewYork, one officer was taken to a hospital after the crowd attempted to push past barricades at East 67th and Lexington Avenue, and pepper spray was used to drive demonstrators back onto the sidewalk. A Patch reporter on the scene was among those struck by the spray, according to the outlet. Police initially said no arrests had been made and described the protest as orderly.

The event inside the synagogue, billed as “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” was advertised online as part of a multi-borough tour with stops also planned in Flatbush and Queens. A Park East spokesperson confirmed the synagogue had rented out the space to the organizers.

Tuesday’s demonstration was organized by PAL-Awda, the same group behind a November 2025 protest at the same address that drew citywide condemnation and prompted City Council Speaker Julie Menin to introduce legislation establishing protest perimeters around houses of worship. A revised version of that bill — which gives the NYPD discretion to set buffer zone sizes case by case rather than imposing a fixed 100-foot rule — became law earlier this spring without Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s signature.

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Tuesday’s perimeter, according to the Forward, kept demonstrators nearly a full block from the synagogue entrance — further than the original 100-foot proposal would have required. The NYPD’s formal protocol under the new law remains in development, making the police response on East 67th an early street-level test of how the department intends to apply its new authority.

A spokesperson for Mayor Mamdani told Patch the administration opposes the real estate event but is “committed to ensuring safe entry and exit from any house of worship.”

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