Thousands streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge Sunday in a march to show solidarity with New York’s Jewish community amid a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in and around the city.
Officials said more than 10,000 people joined the rally against recent violent acts, which have included the machete slashing at a rabbi’s house in Monsey and kosher grocery store shooting in Jersey City.
“People in the city [have] taken very seriously what’s happened,” demonstrator Steve Cohen, 56, told The Post. “We can’t tolerate these attacks in our community and attack against our community. When one minority is persecuted every minority is persecuted.”
Marchers gathered at Foley Square in lower Manhattan with signs reading “No Hate, No Fear” and “Unfriend Intolerance” then crossed the bridge to Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza, shutting down some lower Manhattan streets in the process.
Miriam Friend, 72, said she was there to call on city officials to provide more security at Jewish cultural and religious centers.
“The city has to do more for the Jewish community,” Friend said. “In the synagogues and community centers, we just don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe. Anybody can just come by and kick down the doors.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer said that he would call on Congress to boost funding to protect houses of worship, allocating $360 million for them to fortify themselves with surveillance equipment, gates and strong doors.
“Houses of worship have become targets, whether it’s a rabbis house in the suburbs of New York or a Christian church in the suburbs of Dallas,” Schumer said, referencing a deadly shooting last week at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo also announced he also will beef up security at New York’s religious-based institutions, doling out an additional $45 million to help protect them against hate crimes.
“Discrimination and racism and anti-Semitism is repugnant to every value that New Yorkers hold dear and is repugnant to every value that this country represents,” Cuomo told the crowd. “Racism and anti-Semitism is anti-American.“
But Cuomo said he was “heartened to see this amazing show of support in solidarity,” adding that Sunday’s demonstration was “New York at her best.”
“What is happened in Monsey [and] what is happened in Brooklyn, New York, is an attack on every New Yorker,” Cuomo said.
The recent rash of anti-Semitic crimes reported in the city include teens attacking two young Jewish boys in Williamsburg on Dec. 23, as well as a group punching a 56-year-old man in Crown Heights the following day.