By: Arthur Popowitz

The annual March for Israel along Fifth Avenue has long been a carefully choreographed expression of solidarity between American Jewry and the Jewish state, a public ritual that binds diaspora identity to the rhythms of Israeli diplomacy. This year’s parade, scheduled for May 31, was expected to unfold with the familiar choreography of flags, anthems, and dignitaries. Instead, it has become the unexpected stage for a diplomatic rupture—one that, as VIN News reported on Wednesday, exposes fault lines within Israel’s own leadership over how to engage political figures in the United States whose record on Israel and antisemitism remains deeply contested.

At the center of the controversy stands Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organization, who publicly announced his intention to invite New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to march beside him in the parade. Hagoel framed the gesture as an appeal to unity, a symbolic overture intended to draw the mayor closer to the Jewish community and, by implication, to the State of Israel itself. Yet the invitation, made in the glare of a Jerusalem conference was received by many as a bewildering miscalculation. For critics, the problem was not merely procedural, but moral and strategic: an embrace extended to a mayor whose municipal decisions and political rhetoric have placed him at odds with mainstream Jewish communal concerns.

The response from Israel’s top diplomat in New York, Consul General Ofir Akunis, was swift and unequivocal. In a statement that the VIN News report described as unusually blunt for an internal Israeli dispute, Akunis rebuked Hagoel for overstepping his authority. The official Israeli delegation to the March for Israel, Akunis made clear, is led by the consulate and composed of ministers, lawmakers, and guests invited through established diplomatic channels. Hagoel, though a familiar presence at the parade, attends as a guest rather than as a representative empowered to extend invitations on Israel’s behalf. More pointedly, Akunis underscored that those who do not recognize Israel as the Jewish state have no place marching as symbolic standard-bearers at an event explicitly designed to affirm that very identity.

The subtext of Akunis’s rebuke reflects a deeper unease within Israel’s diplomatic corps about how the Jewish state should relate to political leaders abroad who position themselves as allies of Jewish communities while simultaneously advancing policies that many Jews perceive as inimical to their security. Mayor Mamdani’s tenure has been marked by contentious decisions, including his refusal to prohibit protests outside synagogues and his administration’s retreat from adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. For many in New York’s Jewish community, these choices have felt less like principled neutrality and more like abdication at a moment when antisemitic incidents and intimidation have surged.

Hagoel, in explaining his invitation, suggested that marching together could serve as a catalyst for dialogue. He has reportedly urged Mamdani to reconsider certain municipal policies, presenting the parade as an opportunity for rapprochement rather than confrontation.