Teaneck, New Jersey, looked a little like the West Bank on Sunday. Who’s to blame depends on who you ask. But one thing is clear: it all started with a real estate fair.
A few weeks ago, a group called My Home in Israel Real Estate plans announced to hold a series of real estate fairs to encourage Americans to buy property in Israel and the West Bank, where the Israeli government has confiscated land from Palestinians. Rich Siegel, a Jewish Palestinian rights activist, promised during a Teaneck City Council meeting that he would organize a protest against My Home in Israel when it came to town.
My Home in Israel had rented the local Keter Torah synagogue for its exhibit in Teaneck. Fearing the worst, the Teaneck government called in Bergen County police and closed the streets around the synagogue. On the day of the event, a heavy police presence separated protesters with Palestinian flags from counter-protesters with Israeli flags.
Although the protest organizers were focused on the real estate fair, the protest became a much larger manifestation of Israeli and Palestinian grievances, accompanied by a lot of boorish behavior on both sides. At one point, a pro-Israeli protester shouted “Fuck your mother” in Arabic, and pro-Palestinian protesters shouted “Son of a bitch” at him in Hebrew.
Two people were arrested for spraying an unknown liquid on passersby at the real estate fair, according to a statement posted on Facebook by the Teaneck Police Department.
Teaneck, a suburb of New York City, is a famously diverse city. (He was the first in New Jersey to do so desegregate its schools.) And because of its large immigrant communities, Teaneck has often immersed itself in foreign policy issues. In 2022, the city averaged heated debate after the local branch of the Democratic Party voted to condemn Hindu nationalism.
But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the most contentious issue in Teaneck politics, and each round of controversy seems to be an escalation from the previous one. In 2021, an Israeli flag-raising ceremony prompted a low-profile counterprotest just made local news. A situation far removed from the strong clashes on Sunday.
Earlier this year, the federal government became involved in the Teaneck Israeli-Palestinian debate. After local high schoolers held a pro-Palestinian rally, city council members pushed Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D–New Jersey) to condemn the “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel protest during school hours”. (I covered the controversy For The interception.) At Gottheimer’s urging, the Department of Education opened a Title VI investigation in adolescents.
These disputes would result in shit-throwing, both metaphorical and literal. Unknown vandals have “repeatedly” thrown bags of feces onto the lawns of pro-Palestinian activists, said protest organizer Adam Weissman, who is Jewish and supports the Palestinian cause. Last year, after a school board member was accused of censoring pro-Israel voices, he called out one of his critics “fucking pencil“on the camera.
Siegel brought the real estate fair to the protesters’ attention on February 27 city council meeting. He he underlined that My Home in Israel advertised properties in the West Bank. Siegel argued that because Israel took the land through military conquest, the sale of such property would violate international law.
The website for My home in Israel says the tour will “focus on” several Israeli cities and three West Bank settlements: Neve Daniel, Efrat and Ma’ale Adumim. Event organizer Gidon Katz said this NorthJersey.com that to call any of the places “stolen land” is to deny the existence of the State of Israel.”
All three West Bank settlements were built at least partially on the earth that the Israeli government seized from Palestinian farmers OR shepherds after conquering the West Bank in 1967. Last month, the US State Department reiterated its position that the settlements are a illegal land theft. Last week the Israeli army declared a further one four square kilometers outside of Ma’ale Adumim to be “state land”.
Siegel argued that the war in Gaza, which has left Teaneck residents “in deep mourning,” made it a particularly bad time to hold the exhibit.
“What this real estate event will do is fuel the fire,” he said. “If it goes ahead, there will be a demonstration. I know there will be a demonstration because I will organize it. There will be a great turnout.”
A video of Siegel’s speech, quickly reposted by the Teaneck for Palestine Instagram page it went viral. Amazon union leader Chris Smalls shared a video of Siegel and the news channel AJ+ course your own interview with Siegel. It would truly be a participatory protest.
On the day of the real estate fair, security politely turned me away from the door, stating that the media would not be allowed inside. So instead, I spoke to the pro-Israel counterprotesters who had gathered along the protesters’ intended route.
While they were eager to share their general feelings about the conflict – that Israel wanted peace and that the Palestinian cause was violent – they were much more timid about defending the real estate sale on its merits. When I pressed the issue, several pro-Israel protesters argued that governments have the right to take land by force.
“There was a war, and they [Palestinians] lost,” said a man named Jacob, who did not provide his last name. “I’m sorry, but this is the whole world.”
A woman named Julie, who did not give her last name, said she supported the two-state solution, meaning Palestinians could have an independent nation state alongside Israel. But she insisted that Palestinian land in the West Bank is “disputed property. It is not property that belongs to them.”
When I asked her specifically about land confiscations, Julie called her friend Dave, who told me that the West Bank is “ours. It’s a biblical land. Go read the Bible.” A third woman who was with him added that “wars happen everywhere. Borders are constantly changing.” She then insisted that she had many “Arab friends”.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters were gathering at the Teaneck Armory, a public park 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) away from the synagogue. Alice Golim, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who helped organize the protest, held a banner reading in Hebrew, “Palestine is not for sale.” You told me that “selling land in the occupied territories is morally a shame.”
Emma Horowitz, president of the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee, said this previously NorthJersey.com that “the idea of protesting a synagogue should be something that shocks all of us.” When I asked Golim about it, he called it “embarrassing” that the real estate fair was being held in a place of worship.
In addition to opposing the sale of Palestinian land, Golim wanted the Israeli government to know that “it will be business as usual until they stop what they are doing in Gaza, work towards the release of the hostages and allow the humanitarian aid”.
Some supporters had a more hardline anti-Israel message. Protesters chanted “We don’t want two states, we want 48,” referring to the lands that became Israel after the 1948 war of independence. A woman wearing a Palestinian scarf held a banner that read: “From the river to the sea , there will be no Israelis.” She refused to answer my questions.
Weissman told me that the sign was not an officially sanctioned part of the protest. But, spontaneously, he began to defend its message. “No Palestinian will say that he believes that Palestine should be cleansed of Jews,” he said. “If you talk to Palestinian Jews who are critical of Israel, they don’t call themselves Israelis, they call themselves Palestinian Jews.”
He cited the example of Neturei Karta, a Jewish group that rejects the state of Israel for fundamentalist religious reasons. Many members live in Jerusalem and Palestinian flags are waving. Their beliefs are considered fringe in both Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
As the protest moved from the armory to the real estate fair, a long line of police cars kept protesters and counter-protesters separated. The organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest, who wore reflective vests, intervened several times to prevent the angry demonstrators from crossing over to the pro-Israeli side.
The two sides spent the half-hour march hurling insults at each other across the police line. A pro-Palestinian protester held up a sign that read “There is a lot of land in hell.” A group of pro-Israeli counter-protesters chanted “human shields” while a group of demonstrators held up photos of fallen Palestinian children.
At times, it looked like the protest would lead to clashes with locals in their own homes.
When a local began filming the protest from his home, a man wrapped in a Palestinian flag approached his driveway and began yelling, “Come out, bitch!” The organizers convinced the protester to calm down. “Let them film it,” Weissman said. “What do we have to hide?”
Later, the same scene was repeated on the other side. A local shouted “Free Palestine” from her window, and a group of counterprotesters wearing Israeli flags entered her lawn. “Free what? Why don’t you come out!” one of them shouted. After a few seconds, they apparently got bored and left.
Ultimately, that was the difference between Teaneck and the West Bank. Despite all the strong feelings and even personal ties that Teaneck residents had towards the region, everyone involved could choose to leave.