Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at police headquarters on Thursday. Adams spoke briefly to reporters after the meeting, where he called New York the “Tel Aviv of America.”
“We’re not silent partners. We fight together against terrorism, against assaults, and we’re going to continue to lift each other up,” Adams said. “So it was good to have the president here.”
The Israeli president, whose role is mostly ceremonial, did not speak. Adams, meanwhile, took only one question: Why was the meeting scheduled for police headquarters?
“Once a cop, always a cop,” he answered.
Herzog’s entourage initially rushed past members of the NYPD’s Jewish fraternal organization, the Shomrim Society, who had assembled for a photo opportunity with him. He returned and Adams introduced him to Rabbi Alvin Kass, the longest serving police chaplain in NYPD history, whom Adams referred to as “my brother.”
Herzog, who stood between Kass and Caban, consented to 46 seconds of photos before leaving.
“That’s enough,” he said, as Adams continued the photo op.
Prior to the photo op, Adams and Caban gave Herzog a tour of the NYPD’s Joint Operation Center, where police coordinate large-scale incidents.
Lt. John Mahom showed off the room’s 13 living room-sized monitors, which displayed 59 different views of the city’s major bridges and surveillance footage from areas like Times Square and Penn Station. Also on display were graphics depicting aircraft flying through the region, a crime incident map, four TV news stations, and the times of day in several U.S. and international cities. The 16 rows of workstations were mostly empty, and were last used over the Fourth of July, according to Mahom.
Herzog was heard asking Mahom about artificial intelligence, to which Adams responded “We’re working on it.”
Adams has focused political energy on Jewish issues in the past. This spring he attended a flag raising for Israel. Last month he created what he called the “city’s first Jewish advisory council.”
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio walked a narrower path in his support of Israel. During his 2015 visit to the country, he initially proposed to meet with Palestinians in the West Bank before abandoning those plans in favor of a meeting with Jewish and Arab schoolchildren.
Meanwhile, the left-leaning Jewish group Jewish Voice for Peace planned protests in Herald Square.
Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the group’s spokesperson, praised the members of New York’s congressional delegation who boycotted Herzog’s speech before a joint session. They include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of the Bronx as well as Rep. Nydia Velazquez, whose district straddles Brooklyn and Queens.
“Herzog may be meeting with Adams and Caban, but three of the seven members of Congress who boycotted his speech at Congress yesterday represent New Yorkers,” she said.
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