Supporters of Hamas gather to protest outside the New York Stock Exchange, Oct. 26, 2023. Photo: Reuters/TheNews2

Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn are being advised to take extra precautions as the New York City borough prepares for a pro-Hamas demonstration on Saturday.

The demonstration will take place as Orthodox Jews, who compose up to 25 percent of the Crown Heights population, mark Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest.

“Jews should definitely avoid the area,” an unnamed security source in the Jewish community told the COLlive.com website. “There’s no intel at this time in which direction the protest will head. Locals should definitely stay away from Eastern Parkway in that area.”

Rabbi Chanina Sperlin of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council told the same outlet that he had received assurances from the New York Police Department that “we will be protected.”

“The protest plans to walk to the house of Senator Chuck Schumer in Park Slope, but I would advise that people don’t take a Shabbos walk in that area,” Rabbi Sperlin added.

Saturday’s demonstration outside the Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway follows a similar event last Saturday in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge neighborhood that triggered concerns in the Jewish community.

“Last week, there was a rally in Bay Ridge that included hateful and antisemitic rhetoric and signs. Despite this, the NYPD did an excellent job of protecting the neighboring communities,” said Rabbi Yaacov Behrman of the Jewish Future Alliance. “We strongly recommend that you stay vigilant and avoid that area unless absolutely necessary.”

Behrman added that the NYPD had told him the marchers did not intend to protest at any of the Jewish institutions in Crown Heights, which include the global headquarters of the Chabad movement.

Saturday’s march is being staged by “Within Our Lifetime,” a hardline antisemitic, pro-Hamas organization rooted in the Arab-American community that advocates the “abolition of Zionism” through Palestinian violence and terrorism against Israel and the harassment of Jewish communities abroad.

The march is being dubbed “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza,” in tribute to “Operation Al Aqsa Flood” — the name chosen by Hamas for its Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel in which more than 1,400 mainly Israeli civilians were brutally raped, murdered, and subjected to the destruction of their homes.

An online toolkit published by “Within Our Lifetime” includes a series of recommended chants, all of which call for Israel’s destruction as well as confrontation with “Zionists” in the US.

The toolkit includes the wording of the chants in Arabic as well as English, among them “Bidna nihki al makshouf, sahyouni ma Bidna Nshoof” (“Say it loud say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here.”)

Other chants being encouraged include the Islamist slogan “Bab Al-Aqsa min Hadeed, ma byiftaha illa alshaheed,” (“The door of Al-Aqsa [mosque in Jerusalem] is made of iron, only a martyr can open it”), “Hey hey, ho ho! Zionism has got to go!” and “From New York to Gaza! Globalize the intifada!”

“Within Our Lifetime” says that its aim is to “defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the Zionist occupation by any means necessary,” and that “the liberation of Palestine requires the abolition of Zionism.”