The hundreds of anti-Israel radicals who wreaked havoc on Manhattan commuters this week included Ivy League graduates, artists with millionaire parents, and women honored by President Obama.
Among them were a Fulbright scholar, multiple New York University graduate students, filmmakers for HBO and Netflix, and out-of-town protesters who gave their home addresses to police in states as far away as Georgia and Florida. It was included.
And since her arrest and release, protesters have been defiant on social media, with some gleefully tweeting photos highlighting her involvement and others boasting that they would “do it again”.
Monday's protests were carefully planned by at least six anti-Israel groups to cause maximum disruption, including blocking traffic exiting Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and Williamsburg Bridge, as well as the New Jersey-bound lanes of the Holland Tunnel. adjusted to.
NYPD and Port Authority officers arrested more than 300 people and issued citations for disorderly conduct. That means they will be released without bail and will appear in court later this year.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could drop or downgrade the charges, but his spokesperson said the charges are still pending.
The newspaper learned that many of the arrested protesters came from privileged backgrounds and had attended some of the country's most prestigious universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell and New York University.
Sources told the Post that their home addresses also included popular Brooklyn neighborhoods like Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Prospect Heights.
Among those arrested was Nayi, or Ney Idris, a 25-year-old Columbia University graduate and New York University graduate student. Admitted that he wrote “fuck” She was working in the mailroom of New York University's Bobst Library over Israel and the words “Liberate Palestine” written on discarded Israeli mail bags.
She was fired and filed a lawsuit to have her job reinstated, alleging protected speech.
The day after the October 7 massacre of hundreds of innocent Israelis by Hamas terrorists, she was recorded speaking at a rally in Times Square, calling the killings “the beginning of our victory.” video canary missionan organization that tracks anti-Semitism.
Idris, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was not the only NYU graduate student arrested.
Ilana Krueger Zaken, 36, lives in South Salem, Westchester. graduate student At New York University's Center for Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement, she researches the Jewish-New-Aramaic dialects of northeastern Kurdistan.
The married mother celebrated her arrest by posting an image of the Manhattan Bridge protest on Instagram, adding: “And we'll do it again.”
Also identified are Daniel Kim, 28, a New York University law graduate who works as a lawyer for the nonprofit Bronx Defenders, and Yale University, who is believed to have traveled from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, to block traffic in Manhattan. Alumnus and filmmaker Lina Cohn was also arrested. This work was praised by the New York Times.
Another out-of-town Ivy League protester was Traba Tam, 29, of Roswell, Georgia.
She is a population scientist at real estate company Zillow, was a 2016 Fulbright Scholar, and holds a master's degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump.
Another Ivy League graduate with a desk ticket was Azani Creeks from Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. harvard divinity schooland now the attack is working against the anti-Wall Street group Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
Many of the protesters, including Ann Holder, 66, a teacher at Pratt Institute, have long been associated with trendy center-left causes.
In 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Holder, a gender and sexuality teacher, Participated in the “scholar strike” Held at a downtown Brooklyn school, it called on students and staff to revolt against “business as usual.”
Two years later, she bought a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in the upscale Prospect Heights neighborhood for $1.2 million.
The most high-profile arrest appears to have been Sunita Viswanath. He was an advisor to Eric Adams' transition team and was hailed by the Obama administration as a “champion of change” in the White House. Earned official “White House Author” status.
Viswanath, 55, said she and her husband, Stephen Shaw, were arrested and held for 15 hours before being released, after which she posted a photo of herself at the Brooklyn Bridge protest on Twitter.
She lives in upscale Cobble Hill, has a vacation home on two acres in El Prado, Taos County, New Mexico, and has been a serial advisor on Hindu faith issues across the city, including to Adams' transition team and public health. Serving. Authorities regarding the new coronavirus.
Viswanath, executive director and co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, was named a White House “Champion of Change” in 2015.
“This is my little group and they were blocking traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday morning!” Vishwanath, 55, I wrote it on Tuesday's X.
Asked for comment on Wednesday, Viswanath identified herself as a Hindu Indian-American and “person of faith,” and said the protests were not anti-Semitic, adding that her husband is Jewish. I also added something.
“For my husband, and many others like him, the best way to be Jewish is to stand up now for justice and peace and an end to bombing,” she said.
Also touting the wealth of his family's fortunes was Eli Coplan, a 31-year-old artist who lives in a rental property in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The family has properties in California and Colorado.
Koplan's work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and galleries in New York and Los Angeles.
His parents own a nearly $4 million home in La Jolla, California, with a spacious 51,00 square feet. The couple bought the home, built in 1973, through a trust in the early 2000s for $1.825 million, according to public records. And they also own a home worth at least $1.7 million in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
His mother, Debra Coplan, is a former director of the ACLU, and his grandparents were involved in the civil rights movement and welcomed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into their home in 1968 when Debra was a child. Ta.
Coplan posted a reel to his Instagram on Monday promoting the feat, acknowledging his participation in the New York City shutdown.
of Reel linked to post The newspaper reported that protesters hoped for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the blockade of Gaza, the release of all Palestinian political prisoners, an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, and an end to the US aid to the Palestinians.” We will continue to take action every day until we stop sending them.” Israel. ”
Mr. Koplan is also Jewish. signed an open letter The book was written by a Jewish writer and denounced the “widespread theory that any criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic.”
He was not the only Jewish artist living in Brooklyn to be arrested; Brooklyn resident Nora Herzog, 27, was also ticketed by the disorderly conduct desk.
Herzog is non-binary drag queenHe uses his account to denounce Israel's actions and is also a graduate assistant at New York University School of Medicine, where he studies the herpes virus.
Another Brooklyn artist and filmmaker with ties to NYU, Ben Snyder, 43, was also arrested. He graduated from Brooklyn College Film School and won the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival Screenplay Award in 2022 for his own film All's Well.
He also worked as a producer on the show “Betty” on HBO and was a screenwriter on Netflix’s “Grand Army.” His work has been featured at the Cannes Film Festival, Aspen Film Festival, and Austin Film Festival.
Herzog and Snyder declined to comment and referred questions to the newspaper's spokesperson, who asked to be referred to only as “Mon” and said the protesters were “inspiring” the people of Gaza and Palestine. He said he wanted “creative and direct action” to help the United States. solidarity.
Among the commuters affected was a father who got out of his car and called protesters idiots before driving through to visit his daughter in Brooklyn.
“The NYPD never took it easy,” said Mong, who was not arrested, adding that some people were detained for up to 10 hours and suffered from migraines.
