Victoria Zirkiev, president of Chazaq's Women's Division, spoke at the Arutz Sheva Summit in New York City, held in partnership with Chazaq, about challenges facing the Jewish community, rising antisemitism, online advocacy, and the role of Jewish women today.
Asked about the Israel Day Parade and the absence of New York City's mayor, Zirkiev said she was not surprised.
"It was pretty obvious," she said. "I think knowing his history, that he used to protest against Israel, against apartheid or whatever you want to call it, we knew that he was going to be trouble."
She contrasted the current situation with the tenure of Mayor Eric Adams.
"Eric Adams was a big supporter of Israel. He visited Israel many times, and the Jews felt like they have a friend in New York and now we feel like we have an enemy," she said.
Addressing the potential impact of the mayor's stance, Zirkiev warned that it could have broader consequences.
"I definitely think it's dangerous because if you have somebody like a mayor of New York City, which is the center of the world, who is openly going against Israel, it's showing the example and it makes it okay," she said. "Maybe there's going to be future other mayors who are going to follow his lead and it's going to lead into more antsemitism."
The discussion also focused on efforts to combat antisemitism online. Zirkiev recently attended a conference organized by Combat Antisemitism that brought together Jewish social media advocates.
"I just came back from a very important conference with Combat Antisemitism where they brought together 200 Jewish influencer voices that are fighting online hate," she said.
According to Zirkiev, the number of pro-Israel and Jewish voices online remains insufficient.
"I think we are completely outnumbered and I feel like we need more people to get involved, especially the youth," she said. "I feel like the schools have a responsibility to empower the youth to go and fight online, get involved politically."
Asked whether online advocacy can truly change minds, Zirkiev said she has seen examples of people whose views shifted through education.
"There is a few people that were at the conference who were anti-Jewish," she said. "Actually we had Muslim people who hated Jewish people and their mind was changed because they got education online. It's amazing. It does affect people."
Turning to her work with Chazaq Women, Zirkiev was asked about the role of Jewish women amid contemporary social movements and values.
"I think the most important role that we have is our children and we have to inspire them and we have to build Jewish pride and religion," she said.
She added that resilience is essential for the next generation.
"Honestly teach them resilience because they're going into an ugly world and the one thing that we can teach our children is be proud Jews and do not back down."