New York City Mayor Eric Adams, top brass of the New York Police Department, and other city officials have attended numerous events hosted by the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF), a nonprofit organization linked to Israel’s far right. The events have raised concerns among some civil rights and pro-Palestine advocates surrounding a police department that has used extraordinary violence to curtail anti-genocide protests throughout New York City.  

The increased scrutiny comes after Prism revealed comments by a speaker at an IHF event who advocated for killing more civilians in Gaza. Prism also previously uncovered IHF connections to a New York congressional representative who has pushed for pro-Israel policies in Congress.

“If any other type of organization had the types of relationships that the NYPD leadership has to the Israel Heritage Foundation, this would be viewed as an egregious, dangerous conflict of interest,” said Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor of journalism at New York University and the host of “Empire City,” a podcast chronicling the history of the NYPD. Kumanyika said the NYPD arrested him, his students, and his colleagues during anti-genocide protests on campus last year.

The NYPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

According to Prism’s analysis of publicly available photos, videos, and press releases, IHF leadership has also taken several trips to Israel, which have included shooting weapons on secure Israeli military training sites and hosting parties for Israeli soldiers.

The organization has also published an endorsement of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which would constitute the forcible transfer of a population and be considered a crime against humanity, according to multiple human rights organizations. Another article published by the IHF advocates for criminal charges, deportation, and punishment of pro-Palestine protesters on college campuses.  

While New York City is known to have the largest Jewish community anywhere in the world outside of Israel, not all American Jewish organizations align politically with the IHF’s agenda. Jewish independent news outlet The Forward referred to the IHF as a “hardline Zionist group,” and while the IHF is highly supportive of President Donald Trump, hundreds of other Jewish groups are not. Almost 80% of Jewish voters voted Democrat in the November 2024 presidential election.

If any other type of organization had the types of relationships that the NYPD leadership has to the Israel Heritage Foundation, this would be viewed as an egregious, dangerous conflict of interest.

Chenjerai Kumanyika, New York University professor

Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), a 6,000-member New York grassroots organization that has advocated for democracy and racial justice for more than 30 years, told Prism neither the NYPD nor Adams has ever asked to meet with them.

JFREJ said in a statement that it is no surprise that the NYPD, whose officers’ union endorsed Trump for president in 2020, is “choosing to align with the far-right abroad.” 

“This reporting could shed additional light on the particular brutality the NYPD has inflicted over the past year and a half on activists protesting in solidarity with Palestinians,” the statement said.

Pro-Israel support in New York leadership

Protests against Israel’s military actions in Gaza have faced violent repression from the NYPD, raising concerns about the department’s alignment with pro-Israel organizations such as the IHF.

One video documenting the NYPD’s response to a Nakba Day rally last year in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn—a hub for New York’s Palestinian American community—shows multiple officers punching protesters. At the same event, one NYPD officer grabbed a person off the sidewalk and threw them into the street. 

According to a review of NYPD violence targeting pro-Palestine protests published in The Nation, the department uses tactics such as “kettling” and prematurely deploys the notorious NYPD Strategic Response Group to pro-Palestine protests, a flagrant violation of a settlement agreement signed between the NYPD, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Legal Aid Society, and the New York State Attorney General following the 2020 protests against police brutality. 

At a Jewish media roundtable at City Hall on Dec. 19, Mayor Eric Adams said that the city “was able to clamp down” on the protests, according to Forward. 

IHF leaders have been open about their disapproval of these protests. On March 11, for instance, the IHF published an article outlining justifications for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and protest leader who was recently abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Several city leaders who have led or supported the violent repression of anti-genocide protesters have frequented events held by the IHF. Adams met with the IHF on April 3, highlighting “the strong relationship between the Israel Heritage Foundation and Mayor Adams,” according to a report by Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva. The report also noted that Adams made “promises” at the IHF event to increase police presence and surveillance during the Jewish holiday of Passover in mid-April. Adams was also presented with matzah for “his unwavering support for Israel and its people,” according to an IHF press release. 

When asking the mayor’s office about the event, Deputy Press Secretary Zachary Nosanchuk told Prism that Adams’ attendance at the IHF event was not in his official capacity as mayor and directed Prism to Adams’ mayoral campaign spokesperson Todd S. Shapiro. Shapiro did not respond to questions about the event after numerous requests. 

In a statement to Prism, the IHF wrote that Adams’ visit was unplanned. “We appreciate Mayor Adams’ visit to our event, despite it being unplanned. As a bipartisan organization, we welcome all pro-Israel politicians. Please know that our events are strictly for fundraising for our nonprofit organization, not for political campaigns. We ensure a respectful environment for our speakers.” The IHF did not respond to questions about whether there was a cost to attend the event, who had attended, or if the event was open to the public. 

Other New York officials tied to crackdowns on protesters have also appeared at IHF events. New York Commissioner of the Community Affairs Unit Fred Kreizman, NYPD Deputy Chief of the Community Affairs Bureau Richie Taylor, NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy, and former Adams adviser Joel Eisdorfer have attended several IHF events, according to photos and videos of the events posted online by the nonprofit.

Eisdorfer left city employment in 2024. At the time, the New York Daily News reported that Eisdorfer “said he plans to work on Adams’ 2025 reelection bid.” Eisdorfer told Prism in a text message that “I am not working for Eric Adams on his mayoral campaign.” When Prism asked about the IHF meeting with Adams, Eisdorfer texted back, “No such meeting has taken place.” Prism then forwarded a photograph of Eisdorfer at the IHF event with Adams, to which he responded, “To clarify, that picture is from an event I attended in my personal capacity. There was no meeting. No further comment at this time.”

Jewish Currents recently reported that Eisdorfer, a senior adviser to Combat Antiemitism Movement (CAM), helped coordinate a CAM training seminar for the NYPD that conflated Palestinian symbols such as the keffiyeh and the watermelon, which shares the colors of the Palestinian flag, as examples of images that “incite hatred, violence, or discrimination against Jewish individuals or communities.” Prism has not seen the training presentation. NYPD brass, including Taylor and McCarthy, were photographed at the Jan. 8 training seminar.

A few months later, McCarthy, the NYPD assistant chief, was photographed at a March 23 IHF event featuring Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. McCarthy has supervised the NYPD’s response to many pro-Palestine demonstrations across Manhattan. At one protest, video shows McCarthy provoking protesters to fight him; at another, he pepper-sprayed himself in the face. The New York Post also reported that federal agents seized McCarthy’s phone amid a federal investigation into the former NYPD commissioner’s twin brother.

McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.

“NYPD leadership and the rank-and-file view rule of law not as something they also have to adhere to, but as a weapon they can wield against everyday people,” JFREJ, the Jewish racial justice group, told Prism.

Taylor, the NYPD deputy chief, also attended the March 23 IHF event and other events in his NYPD uniform.

“These NYPD officers are frequently meeting with this group and engaging in uniform, explicitly tying the NYPD to the politics of this organization and to their agenda,” Kumanyika told Prism. “That’s really alarming, and that’s something that suggests that the Israel Heritage Foundation is something we should be paying a lot more attention to.” 

According to IHF social media posts and public photo albums Prism reviewed, Taylor also spoke at a July 2024 IHF event, where he praised pro-Israel congressional candidate Alison Esposito. Other IHF events he has attended in recent years featured former Vice President Mike Pence, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville. One June 2023 IHF event Taylor attended featured Israel’s former United Nations Permanent Representative Gilad Erdan and Israeli Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu. In January 2024, Eliyahu called for Israel to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved citizens” in the strip. South Africa cited those comments to the International Court of Justice in its case accusing Israel of genocide. 

Within publicly available materials, Prism did not find specific evidence that the IHF or Israeli officials have lobbied Taylor or the NYPD in relation to the department’s crackdown on anti-genocide protesters. 

Prism asked the IHF if Eisdorfer, Kreizman, Taylor, and McCarthy had paid to attend IHF events, or if the IHF had lobbied the NYPD to crack down on anti-genocide protests across the city. The IHF wrote in an email: 

We don’t lobby
We don’t pay politicians 
Politicians don’t pay us
Unexpected guest don’t & didn’t pay!

At an IHF event last summer, Taylor, not wearing his uniform, said in a speech that IHF Executive Director David Katz and his team “are truly the unsung heroes of Israel.” Earlier in his speech, Taylor told event attendees, “When it comes to fighting for the Jewish community, when it comes to fighting for Israel … I know I’ve been here many times with the mayor’s team. … We know who our friends are, we know who our family is, just like you know who your friends are. We, as the police department, we know who stands with us.”

Prism attempted to reach out to Taylor, the office of New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and New York City’s Inspector General for comment about Tayor’s attendance in NYPD uniform at multiple IHF events and his comments concerning who the NYPD’s “friends” are. Taylor and Williams’ office did not respond, and the Inspector General declined to comment. 

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the U.S. policy fellow at the independent Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka, said it appeared to him that Taylor said at the event that the NYPD sees Zionists as friends and Palestinians as enemies.

“American law enforcement without a doubt should be unbiased in its application of U.S. law,” Kenney-Shawa said. “If the police department is approaching law enforcement with that dichotomy or that relationship in mind, that’s extremely troubling.”

The NYPD has conspicuously brought on “wanton reckless violence,” according to Kumanyika, even violently disrupting Jewish students who performed Passover traditions at a peaceful protest at NYU. 

“And then to be seeing all these relationships to individuals and this organization that have expressed extremely racist and anti-Palestinian rhetoric, that is something that needs a lot more public attention and a lot more scrutiny,” Kumanyika said. “It certainly doesn’t look good for the NYPD’s claim to be representing all New Yorkers.”

The NYPD has a long history of collaboration with Israeli police and security agencies, establishing the NYPD Tel Aviv liaison program in 2003. Adams has also made multiple trips to Israel, accompanied by his former aide Eisdorfer, in 2016 and 2023, when Adams met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to Oct. 7, 2023. Netanyahu is now wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. 

Adams’ office did not respond to a detailed list of questions from Prism. Instead, the mayor’s press office wrote, “As the home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, Mayor Adams and the entire administration regularly engage with hundreds of key Jewish stakeholder organizations throughout New York City, including the Israel Heritage Foundation. Commissioner Kreizman has attended some events to provide greetings to the Jewish community, but the city did not pay for IHF dinners.” 

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler previously “excoriated” Adams, according to the New York Times, for failing to “adequately represent the demographic diversity of Jewish New Yorkers” at City Hall. 

But the political alignment of the IHF squarely with the Israeli far right is not the only concerning factor for many community groups and individuals Prism talked to.

According to Prism’s analysis of publicly available photos, videos, and press releases, IHF leadership has also taken numerous trips to Israel, met with Israeli military units, and even engaged in live fire weapons training at an Israeli Magav police academy in Beit Horon. The photos also appear to show IHF trip attendees handing out prepaid gift cards to the Magav unit, which is intimately involved in the violent ethnic cleansing and home demolition operations within Area C of the West Bank. At a July 2023 event with Trump, the IHF lobbied for full Israeli sovereignty, otherwise known as annexation. The International Court of Justice issued an opinion last July stating that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal.

The IHF also “arranged” a December 2023 event at Israel’s Evyatar hilltop outpost and army base in the West Bank. A banner for the event bore the logo of the far-right Nachala Settlement Movement, led by infamous settlement leader Daniella Weiss, which has since advocated for Israeli settlements in Gaza. Less than a year after the IHF-sponsored event at Evyatar, peace activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, an American and Turkish dual citizen, was shot and killed by the Israeli military in the Palestinian town of Beita, immediately downhill from the Evyatar outpost.

Eygi and seven Palestinians have been killed by Israelis surrounding the Evyatar outpost alone. 

For Kenney-Shawa, Deputy Chief Taylor’s comments and participation in IHF events are evidence of a two-pronged relationship the NYPD has cultivated with Israel.

“There is not only this technical cooperation, but this ideological affiliation between what the NYPD sees as its mission and Zionism as a whole,” Kenney-Shawa said.

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor