Air travel and entry to the US is regulated by the federal government. Trump did not close the airports quickly enough. He claimed to have banned travel from China but that was a lie, and travel from Europe (particularly Italy) continued with no screening and no quarantined.
The bottom line is that Israel has leadership that listened to scientists and the US has leadership that promotes medical quackery and trashes scientists.
BTW a better comparison to Israel than NYC is New Jersey. Similar population and land area. Much higher COVID-19 fatality rate in NJ.