StopAntisemitism, a Jewish advocacy group and watchdog, posted a video online Sunday showing a “Free Palestine” activist blocking a woman from crossing the street. According to the group, the activist noticed her Jewish star and launched into an expletive-laden antisemitic tirade.

The outburst was unintelligible, filled mostly with curse words, and the activist did not appear to try to make a point or present an argument.

The incident took place near 42nd Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Anti-Jewish incidents have soared in New York City since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, but hate crimes against Jews have sharply risen since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the reins of leadership. After two people were stabbed in NYC last month, one of them Jewish, leaders from across the political and Jewish religious spectrum pleaded with Mamdani to tone down his anti-Israel rhetoric, which they blamed for the spike in anti-Jewish violence.

Leaders gathered at a press conference in late July on the Upper West Side hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, UJA-Federation of New York and other partners at the Jewish Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. One of the speakers said that “when a member of our community was stabbed on his way out of the synagogue, the evil we gathered to remember stopped belonging to the past. Suddenly, it was right here in the present.”

“When public officials repeatedly cast the Jewish community as a stand-in for the actions of the Israeli government, they create a climate in which Jews become targets,” Rabbi Yosie Levine of the Jewish Center said in a pointed reference to the mayor. “When I was growing up, the only time we saw security outside my synagogue or Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak. The police were there to protect him.”

“Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us,” he said.

Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, said the attack was shocking but not surprising.

“We’re no longer surprised,” he said. “When the mayor of New York repeatedly uses his platform to relentlessly single out and demonize Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and calls those who support it ‘monsters,’ he contributes to a climate in which Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly targeted and unsafe.”

“Mayor Mamdani, stop fanning the flames of hatred and division,” he added. “The consequences are not abstract. They’re playing out on our streets.”

A grassroots protest also took place after the stabbing, with hundreds of protesters pouring into the streets and chanting, “Remove Mamdani.”