I almost didn't go.
I'd seen it on social media the night before — a gathering on 83rd and Amsterdam on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Not exactly a protest. More like New Yorkers showing up to say: enough. Bring your American flag. Stand together. Be counted.
So I went. And I'm glad I did.
What I found when I got there was a crowd of mostly Jewish New Yorkers, organized by a group called End Jew Hatred, gathered in the same neighborhood where, just days before, two men had been attacked in broad daylight. One Asian. One Jewish. Both stabbed. The suspect, Raul Morales, 51, yelled "Allahu Akbar" during both attacks.
By the time I left, the crowd had grown.
Newmax asked to intervie me as stood with the crowd. You can watch the clip here:
What Happened. And What Didn't.
The facts of the July 23rd attack were not disputed.
According to both police and the Anti-Defamation League, eyewitnesses reported the suspect shouting a religious phrase before stabbing a 57-year-old Asian man in the back, then continuing down the block to stab a 50-year-old Jewish man — who had just left a synagogue and was visibly wearing a kippah — in the chest with a screwdriver.
Both victims survived. Morales was later charged with two counts of attempted murder as hate crimes.
So how did New York City's mayor respond?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first public statement came hours after the attack.
In those hours, while the city was reacting and Governor Kathy Hochul had already released a statement calling it "another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they're Jewish,"
Mamdani posted about his housing tax plan. A pied-a-terre tax. At 3:55 PM. Nearly two and a half hours after the stabbings.
When his statement finally came, it acknowledged the attacks and thanked the NYPD. But it also included this:
"The NYPD's initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor."
Mental health. For a man who shouted "Allahu Akbar" before stabbing a Jewish man outside a synagogue and an Asian man on the same block.
The UJA-Federation of New York said what a lot of people were already thinking:
"Words have consequences. Particularly, words from the Mayor of New York City. These attacks came soon after Mayor Mamdani once again used his official platform to viciously attack Israel, the only Jewish state. We cannot ignore the dangerous climate created when elected leaders relentlessly portray Israel — and, by extension, the many Jewish New Yorkers who feel a deep connection to it — as uniquely evil and illegitimate."
The Numbers Don't Lie.
This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of public record.
According to NYPD data, Jewish New Yorkers make up just 10% of the city's population — yet antisemitic hate crimes account for 55% of all confirmed hate crimes in New York City in 2026.
Anti-Muslim hate crimes, by comparison, totaled fewer than 5% of the total. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed those numbers herself at a press conference on July 2, 2026.
Those are not my numbers. Those are the city's own numbers.
Yet at that same press conference, Mayor Mamdani led not with the 55% figure, but with the percentage increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes. "The largest increase being of anti-Muslim hate crimes," he said, "a 140% increase." When pressed, he acknowledged antisemitic hate crimes comprised more than half of the total. But that was not his opening. That was not his emphasis.
Source: NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force data, reported by JNS and confirmed by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at a July 2, 2026 press briefing at One Police Plaza.
We all need to pay attention, before it is too late!
A Pattern That Predates the Stabbings.
And this didn't start with the stabbings.
During his campaign, Mamdani pledged that as mayor, he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Netanyahu came to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
He had no legal authority to make that arrest. The office of mayor of New York City carries no such power. But he said it anyway — and it resonated with enough voters to help carry him to Gracie Mansion.
President Trump made clear that was not going to happen. Netanyahu will come to New York in September.
What Mamdani has done instead is encourage New Yorkers to come out and protest Netanyahu's visit. The NYPD, which has managed protest after protest in this city over the past several years, many of which turned dangerous, is furious. And they should be.
What does all of this tell us?
Patterns of what a person responds to — and how quickly, and with what energy — reveal what they actually believe. And what they actually prioritize.
Mayor Mamdani is not hiding who he is. He never was. Most New Yorkers who voted for him heard the word "free" enough times that they stopped listening to the rest.
That is not cynicism. That is observation. I saw through it all from day one.
One Flag. One Block. One Moment.
I stood in that crowd on 83rd Street for about an hour. Hundreds of people. American flags everywhere. A Jewish community organizing itself because it felt, correctly, that it could not wait for someone else to speak for it.
Before it started getting loud, before the people on the other side of the crowd began to make things uncomfortable, I was there. I watched the crowd grow. I watched people arriving who had seen it on their phones and decided to come anyway.
One person at a time.
I think about this a lot.
I walk through New York City with an American flag sometimes. Central Park. The streets of my Manhattan. People stop. Some of them sneer , and yes, that is a real thing, a person sneering at an American flag in an American city, and I will never fully make peace with that. But far more often, someone says thank you. Someone says USA. A parent points and a child looks, and maybe that kid remembers it.
You never know which moment lands. You never know which one matters. You only know whether you showed up or you didn't.
Every person in that crowd on 83rd Street made a decision. Some of them overcame real fear to be there. Some of them came alone. Some of them had never done anything like it before. And the crowd grew, not because of an organization or a megaphone or a movement, but because one person showed up, and then another, and then another.
That is how it has always worked. That is how it still works.
Never Think One Person Can't Make a Difference.
I know it's easy to feel like what you do doesn't matter. The news is loud. The politics are exhausting. The people in power sometimes seem to speak a language that has nothing to do with the lives of ordinary Americans who just want their city to be safe and their country to mean something.
But the woman who gave up her Sunday morning to walk over and stand on that corner mattered. The man who showed up alone mattered. The family that brought their kids so they could see what it looks like when people refuse to be silent — they mattered.
You matter.
You do not need a platform. You do not need permission. You do not need a crowd to already be there before you arrive. Sometimes YOU are the reason the crowd shows up.
One flag. One block. One hour on a summer afternoon in New York City.
It is enough. It is more than enough. It is everything.
Wear It.
I was wearing my Conviction Lion tee when I walked into that crowd. It felt right. Because conviction isn't just something you feel — it's something you live, something you show up in, something you wear when it would be easier to stay home.
If you want to wear your values — not just talk about them — this is the shirt:
Conviction Lion — Faith. Courage. Freedom.
If this post moved you, share it. Someone in your life needs to read it.
God bless our military, our veterans, and everyone who stands up.