Elected officials and pro-Israel Jewish organizations spent weeks criticizing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision not to attend the annual Israel Day Parade in Manhattan on Sunday, calling the event an apolitical celebration of Jewish identity and heritage that was separate from Israeli politics or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But both turned out to be major elements of this year’s parade, which featured a delegation of far-right Israeli lawmakers and cabinet officials. Chief among was the nation’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a leader of the Israeli settler movement with a long record of hostile statements toward Palestinians, L.G.B.T.Q. people and Reform Jews.
Israeli officials do typically march in the parade, but organizers said that they had been shocked by the composition of this year’s delegation, and that they had not been notified in advance of Mr. Smotrich’s participation.
New York elected officials who participated, and who had sought to characterize the parade as an apolitical event, insisted on Monday that they had not known they would be sharing Fifth Avenue with Mr. Smotrich and other politicians who are widely viewed as hard-liners.
“Bezalel Smotrich is a far-right extremist whose hateful and divisive rhetoric is fundamentally at odds with the values we hold dear in New York,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. “Yesterday’s parade was a celebration of Jewish pride, community and unity. I strongly condemn his participation.”
The presence of Mr. Smotrich and other far-right ministers also drew condemnation from progressive groups, who said they were appalled that Mr. Smotrich appeared to be celebrated on Fifth Avenue just three years after many Jewish groups urged that he be shunned in the United States.
“Bezalel Smotrich is a zealot who should be sanctioned by the American government and shunned by Jewish communal leaders — not cheered while marching in our streets or speaking in our synagogues,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that has been attacked by the Netanyahu government.
Mr. Smotrich said last month that he had learned the International Criminal Court prosecutor had requested a warrant for his arrest, though he did not specify what charges he might face. The court, whose warrants are typically secret, declined to confirm nor deny.
Mark Treyger, the chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the lead organizer of the parade, said his group had not known that Mr. Smotrich and other far-right officials, including Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Ofir Sofer and Amichay Eliyahu, were planning to march.
“Participation in the parade is not an endorsement of any political figure or ideology,” Mr. Treyger said in a statement, which did not name the officials. “We reject rhetoric that dehumanizes others, fuels division or diminishes the dignity of any human being.”
In an interview, Mr. Treyger said it appeared the officials had been brought to the parade with a group from Israel’s consulate general in New York, which typically organizes Israeli delegations to the event.
“There was a complete lack of transparency here,” said Mr. Treyger, who said that he did not know Mr. Smotrich was at the parade until it was nearly over. “They did not share any information about these attendees coming to the parade. We certainly asked, and they did not share these names.”
The Israeli consulate did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Mr. Mamdani had said for months that he would not attend the Israel Day Parade, citing his longtime opposition to the Israeli government. Still, he said last week that he took “seriously my responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of every New Yorker and every event,” and unveiled a sweeping security plan for the parade.
But many other prominent elected officials in New York did march. In addition to Ms. Hochul, they included Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader; Letitia James, the state attorney general; Mark Levine, the city comptroller; and Julie Menin, the City Council speaker.
Last week, Mr. Levine said the parade should be viewed “beyond the policy debates of the day.” Ms. Menin said, “I just don’t think a parade should be synonymous with the Israeli government, because it’s not.” And Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, described the parade as “one of the most joyful days of the year,” saying she intended to “march proudly.”
By Monday, many had shifted their tone, releasing statements condemning Mr. Smotrich and saying they had not know he would be at the parade.
A spokesman for Ms. Menin said she “fully condemns his views and participation in what was otherwise a positive show of Jewish pride and unity.” Ms. James said in a statement: “Islamophobia has no place in New York. I unequivocally condemn Bezalel Smotrich’s hateful rhetoric.”
Ms. Tisch said the parade had been “a safe and joyful celebration for tens of thousands of families” and that “hateful and offensive language has no place in that celebration.” And a spokesman for Mr. Schumer said his “condemnation of Smotrich’s extremism is longstanding, public, and unchanged.”
On Monday, Mr. Mamdani condemned the participation of Mr. Smotrich and the other cabinet officials in the parade.
“You can see in the participation of the far-right Israeli Minister Smotrich, as well as a number of other ministers, a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide and frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza,” he said in an interview on MS NOW. “And I am offended, as I know many New Yorkers are, by their participation.”
Mr. Smotrich, the most senior Israeli official to march in the parade, has said he hopes to bury the idea of an independent Palestinian state.
He has called for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank without giving its roughly three million Palestinian residents the right to vote or to be elected to positions in Israel’s government. While Israeli and international human rights groups have denounced that idea as tantamount to apartheid, Mr. Smotrich has argued that Israel does not need to remain a “perfect democracy.”
As a government minister, he has promoted the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and argued that Israel should build settlements in Gaza, whose Palestinian residents he has said should be encouraged to leave.
He has also criticized Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, and he has a history of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. remarks. As a young activist, he helped organize “the Parade of Beasts” to mock gay pride parades, and once called himself a “proud homophobe.” He later apologized, but has remained opposed to L.G.B.T. recognition in Israel.
Mr. Eliyahu, Israel’s heritage minister, said in a radio interview last year that Israel was “rushing toward Gaza being erased. Thank God, we are erasing this evil.” He added: “All of Gaza will one day be Jewish.”
The parade also featured lower-level Israeli lawmakers with a history of extreme views. One of them, Ariel Kallner, said Israel should commit another Nakba — the term used by Palestinians to refer to their displacement during the creation of Israel in 1948 — in response to the deadly Hamas-led attacks on the nation.
Another lawmaker who attended, Yitzhak Kroizer, has called for Gaza to “be wiped off the map” and argued that “in the Gaza Strip, there are no innocents.”
After Israeli police opened fire in the West Bank in March, killing several civilians, Mr. Kroizer said he backed Israeli soldiers “in every situation, even if the collateral damage is women or children or whatever it may be.”
Sally Goldenberg and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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