There are moments in the life of a city when institutions prove whether they stand for the vulnerable or merely stand aside. Last week, outside Park East Synagogue, the NYPD under Commissioner Jessica Tisch chose the latter. New Yorkers watched it happen in real time: a mob descended on a synagogue, blocked its entrance, and terrorized congregants — and the police, whose very mandate is to prevent this kind of menace, fumbled their responsibilities so comprehensively that an apology is almost insulting.

Commissioner Tisch says she is sorry. She says she “fell short.” But this wasn’t a parking-enforcement slip-up. This wasn’t a misassigned patrol car. This was a mob — an outright mob — hemming in Jews outside their own house of worship while shouting threats, curse-laden chants, and triumphalist applause for the murder of Israelis. This was a scene with all the ugly hallmarks of a modern-day pogrom. And she wants us to believe it was merely a poorly drawn perimeter?

No. The stakes were far too high for this to be brushed off as a tactical oversight. The city’s top law-enforcement officer cannot simply shrug after hundreds of demonstrators swarm a synagogue door. This is the kind of failure that can only occur when the people in charge are asleep at the switch — or worse, too paralyzed by political sensitivities to act.

And here is the bitter truth: Jewish New Yorkers were left exposed.

Even more galling is how predictable the danger was. The event was not obscure. Nefesh B’Nefesh is not a fringe organization. Park East Synagogue is not some unmarked storefront shul in an alleyway. It is one of the most prominent Jewish institutions in the city, led by a 95-year-old rabbi who survived Kristallnacht. There was ample notice. Ample time. Ample justification for a robust police presence. Instead, the NYPD positioned officers so poorly that worshippers were forced to squeeze past a jeering, hostile gauntlet of demonstrators.

Commissioner Tisch insists she understands the “moment we are living in.” If she truly understood, she would have never allowed that moment to unfold in the first place. Understanding requires anticipation. It requires vigilance. It requires a posture of prevention, not postmortem remorse.

But perhaps the NYPD under her command was taking its cues from the city’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani — a man who somehow managed to express discomfort at the protesters’ rhetoric while simultaneously implying that the synagogue’s event was the real problem. Commissioner Tisch’s police force, in that light, looks like it was caught between instinct and political pressure — and surrendered to the latter.

No police commissioner worthy of the uniform would permit that.

New York’s Jewish community is not imagining the atmosphere. It is not exaggerating the danger. After October 7, Jews across the five boroughs have endured harassment on campuses, vandalism of schools and synagogues, mobs outside libraries, assaults on the street, and now — this. A synagogue entrance turned into a barricade, guarded not by officers but by agitators waving flags and shouting threats.

Commissioner Tisch wants her apology to be viewed as moral leadership. But moral leadership is not defined by contrition after failure. It is demonstrated by ensuring that those failures don’t happen. What happened at Park East was preventable. That is the point. That is why her words ring hollow.

When Jewish New Yorkers call 911, they want protection — not reflection.

When a synagogue hosts a lawful, peaceful, entirely unremarkable informational event about aliyah, the city’s police should ensure its doors remain open — not allow them to be blocked by pro-Hamas terrorists who believe intimidation is a legitimate political tool.

When mobs gather to menace a minority community, officers should be present in force — not appear only after the damage is done.

Commissioner Tisch, through either mismanagement or misjudgment, failed in those basic obligations.

And this city cannot — must not — treat Park East as a one-off incident that requires nothing more than a press conference and a mea culpa. If a mob can surround a synagogue on the Upper East Side and the police commissioner’s primary response is regretful hand-wringing instead of immediate personnel consequences, then New York has forfeited the credibility of its own promise: that no faith community should ever fear walking into its house of worship.

Jewish New Yorkers are rightfully enraged. They are rightfully demanding accountability. They are rightfully questioning whether the city’s leadership — present and incoming — grasps the severity of allowing anti-Jewish hostilities to escalate unchecked.

Commissioner Tisch’s apology is not a solution. It is an admission. An admission that she did not do her job.

If she wants to restore even a shred of trust, she cannot stop at self-flagellating statements. She must remove the commanders who failed. She must overhaul the deployment strategies that permitted a synagogue to be effectively besieged. She must demonstrate — with actions, not platitudes — that the NYPD will treat threats to Jewish safety with the seriousness they demand.

Because the next mob will not wait politely while the commissioner searches for stronger words.

Jewish New Yorkers deserve protection. Not regrets. Not excuses. Protection.

And until Commissioner Tisch delivers that — decisively, consistently, unapologetically — she has not earned the right to stay in her role.