Last week in New Orleans, some 200 mayors and municipal leaders, representing 30 million constituents, gathered for the North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism. Inside the hotel, we spoke about policy, policing, education, social media, and community cohesion. We shared best practices and hard truths. We talked about rising antisemitism with charts, data, and headlines.
But the most powerful lesson didn’t happen in a conference room. It happened in the streets.
As part of the summit, we held a traditional New Orleans second line parade. It was a joyful, jazz-fueled march meant to celebrate community, resilience, and to stand united against hate. Jewish and non-Jewish mayors of diverse backgrounds walked side by side, laughing and dancing behind the band in a hopeful display of unity and dignity for all.
Then the pro-Palestinian protesters arrived, positioning themselves along the parade route and gathering at summit events. They met our second line of love with a wall of hate – shouting hostile slogans, waving signs accusing Jews of monstrous crimes, and using rhetoric that crossed the line from political protest into open intimidation.
For many of the mayors, this was the first time they personally felt even a fraction of the fear, tension, and vulnerability that so many Jews now live with every day. Antisemitism was no longer a statistic on a PowerPoint slide. It was a crowd on the sidewalk, screaming into their ears.
And as strange as it sounds, that’s why I find myself saying something unexpected: We should thank the protesters.
Dehumanizing and demonizing language used to describe Jews
Not because their message was justified or acceptable. It wasn’t. Much of what was shouted and displayed that day crossed into dehumanizing, demonizing language about Jews – the very essence of antisemitism. There is a world of difference between criticizing Israeli policy and chanting slogans that glorify violence or single out Jews, and those who support them, as a collective enemy.
We should thank them because, without realizing it, they ripped away any lingering illusion that antisemitism is abstract, rare, or exaggerated. They made sure that every mayor and municipal leader who came to New Orleans understood, viscerally, that this is not a theoretical problem. Mayors found themselves face-to-face with a crowd whose rage and hostility were aimed squarely at Jews and those who stand with them.
One mayor from the South turned to me and said he could not believe that people were protesting a conference whose sole purpose was to combat antisemitism and hate. Another mayor spoke through tears about how the hostility outside reminded him of the ugliest moments in his own community’s history. Many told me this was the moment it truly clicked: “This is what Jews are facing in our cities, and we can’t pretend it isn’t happening.”
There was another difference between what the mayors experienced and what many Jews endure: we had protection.
Because this summit was high-profile and sensitive, there was a strong police presence at the second line parade, around the hotel, and throughout the program. Officers were visible. Barriers were in place. We knew that if anything crossed a line, there were trained professionals ready to respond.
But what happens on an ordinary Shabbat, when a group of protesters decides to show up at a synagogue as families arrive for services? What happens when Jewish students are surrounded and shouted down on campus and no one steps in? What happens to the Jewish community center that gets repeated threats while local authorities shrug it off as “just words”?
Our mayors left New Orleans understanding that the answer cannot be “nothing.”
Cities have a responsibility to protect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, including for those whose views many of us deeply oppose. But cities also have a responsibility to ensure that protests do not become campaigns of harassment, assault, and intimidation.
When a demonstration targets Jews simply because they are Jews, when rhetoric incentivizes violence, or when a protest turns into a group that surrounds and screams at people because they are visibly Jewish, that is not democracy functioning well. That is a warning.
So yes, paradoxically, I am grateful to the protesters who tried to hijack our second line parade and intimidate elected leaders of all faiths at the hotel. In spite of themselves, they drew the sharpest possible contrast between what we were doing inside and what they were doing outside.
The protesters did not derail our summit. They defined its urgency.
If you are a mayor, council member, city manager, or law enforcement leader, I hope you take the lesson to heart that antisemitism is not a distant issue. It is at your parades and your campuses, outside your synagogues and community centers, on your streets and social media feeds. Jews in your city are watching to see whether you notice, whether you understand, and whether you will stand up when it counts.
In New Orleans, for a few days, mayors got a glimpse of that reality. The protesters showed us that our work is not theoretical. They reminded us that behind every incident report is a real person, walking through their own second line of joy, suddenly confronted with a wall of hate.
The mayors who were with us saw it. Now the question is what they, and all of us, will do next.
The writer is the chief government affairs officer at the Combat Antisemitism Movement. She previously held elected office as Town Supervisor in New Castle, NY.