By: Don Driggers
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is not one to ever keep his thoughts to himself or his mouth shut. Sunday, Giuliani was walking in Israel Day Parade and stopped to lean over the metal barricades to call an unidentified man a “jackass and brainwashed a**hole” after he was heckled.
A video shows Giuliani yelling at the crowd at the corner of 62nd and 5th but doesn’t show the heckler or what the man said to cause the former Mayor’s reaction. Giuliani was also heard yelling , “Crime was down 55% under me, it’s up 40% under him”, possibly referring to current Mayor Eric Adams.
The video was posted on Twitter by The Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluh and is 35 seconds long.
Sam Raskin of The New York Post writes, “The former mayor then gave his miniature Israeli flag a wave and concluded his eruption with, “And you are probably as demented as [President] Biden!” before continuing to walk in the parade route while smiling and waving the flag above his head”.
During his tenure at City Hall, Giuliani and then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton implemented a new data system for the NYPD. The system is credited with helping crime rates plummet in the mid- to late 1990s, according to The New York Post.
According to the event’s own website, the JCRC-NY Celebrate Israel Parade is the world’s largest expression of solidarity with the Jewish state. “Come join us and cheer on more than 40,000 marchers, dozens of fabulous floats, marching bands, and some exciting Jewish and Israeli musical performers! The parade proceeds up Fifth Avenue from 57th Street to 74th Street, displaying our passion for the State of Israel and our love for the global Jewish community.” The 2022 Parade was also broadcasted locally on Fox TV’s My9 network and around the world via live webcast.
The Wikipedia page for the event gives a brief history, “In 1964 Haim Zohar, Charles Bick, Ted Comet, Alvin Schiff, and Dan Ronen worked together in order to plan a demonstration of American Jewish solidarity with Israel. They coordinated with the Manhattan Day School to march from their school to a theater on Broadway. This March was known as the Youth Salute to Israel Parade. In 1965 David Ben Gurion visited New York. Thousands of people stood on 5th Avenue watching Ben Gurion, in an impromptu event. This later created parade route followed in future years. In 2011, the parade was renamed the Celebrate Israel Parade in a launch event at the Edison Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan. 2020 saw the parade go virtual.”
