The surprise first-round win of Zohran Mamdani [shown above], a previously little-known 33 year-old socialist, Muslim and BDS-supporting NY State Assemblyman, over ten primary election opponents for the Democratic nomination for NYC Mayor, including the heavily-favored former governor Andrew Cuomo, has sent shock waves far and wide, especially among New York’s Jews. Nevertheless, as explained by Michelle Goldberg in the NY Times, “Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani,” emphasizing not his anti-Israel politics, but his youthful anti-Trump, progressive charisma. And there’s “More than our fear” by Bess Kalb, who voted for Brad Lander.
Mamdani drew a quick endorsement from the dean of Jewishly-identified New York City Democrats, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, but also some cautionary notes from other public officials. During a local public radio talk show appearance, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand confused the term “jihad” with “intifada,” but in follow-up conversation, she made it clear that Mamdani needs to stop parsing the meaning of “Intifada,” as in “Globalize the Intifada.” This word reminds many Jews of the early 2000s when Palestinian suicide bombers murdered up to 1,000 random Israelis going about their everyday lives within the heart of Israel — a view echoed by Goldberg and Kalb.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs heads T’ruah, a liberal social advocacy organization of American Jewish clergy — which among other things, partners with other pro-Israel/pro-peace/progressive groups like J Street and the New Jewish Narrative in a loose alliance known as the Progressive Israel Network. To add a measured note of calm to the public discourse at this time, she posted the following on Facebook (a personal reflection, not officially representing T’ruah organizationally), copied here with the permission of Rabbi Jacobs:
A few notes about the mayoral primary (if there’s anything left to be said).
1. Mamdani ran a *great* campaign. He generated an excitement that has rarely been seen in politics, and spoke directly to the #1 concern of the vast majority of New Yorkers: The sheer impossibility of being able to afford this city without a Wall Street salary, and the fear of being pushed out by rising rents and other costs. It’s no secret that I supported Brad Lander and believe that he was best positioned to be mayor, and I’m sure he will find a way to keep contributing his wisdom and passion to making this city better for everyone. His grace and commitment to partnership over the past few days (& always) has been something to behold.
2. I hear the fear in my Jewish community. I’ve also witnessed the dehumanization of Israeli (& American) Jews, the calls to wipe out Israel, the attacks on synagogues and other institutions, and horrifyingly the murders and attempted murders in DC and Boulder. And I am impressed at Mamdani’s willingness to visit multiple Jewish communities and his reflecting back the fear he heard in his Colbert interview and elsewhere.
3. I don’t agree with Mamdani on a lot of points when it comes to Israel. But NYC, contrary to popular belief, does not make its own foreign policy. And I haven’t agreed with any previous mayor on everything …. Various interest groups, ethnic & religious groups & political factions will need to fight with the next mayor just as they’ve fought with every mayor.
4. This election was not a referendum on Israel/Palestine. Despite attempts to make it so, Mamdani kept his focus on affordability– again, the thing most important to most New Yorkers. Want proof? In a less noticed election, Mark D. Levine is the presumptive winner of the Comptroller race, despite the fact that lefty groups declined to endorse him and some even actively campaigned against him because of his Zionism. (I tried to find a picture of him speaking at one of the Israeli democracy protests–in Hebrew no less….)
5. Jews are and always will be an important part of NYC. And the best thing we can do for the future of this city and for our own safety and here is to work with our neighbors to make this a better and safer city for everyone– neither ignoring our own fears of antisemitic violence or masking our connection to Israel, nor making a certain position on Israel the be all & end all of our politics.
One comment below her post is from a prominent liberal Zionist objecting to Mamdani’s pledge to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu in compliance with the International Criminal Court’s war crimes charge; although the US has never obligated itself to ICC jurisdiction, this may be no idle threat — given that Netanyahu visits NYC to speak at the UN, and occasionally for other purposes. The commenter’s no fan of Netanyahu, but regards this position as improper, contradicting Jacobs’s point in #3 that NYC “does not make its own foreign policy.” This is not to suggest who is correct, but to indicate that questions remain regarding Mamdani’s candidacy.
No doubt, the general election campaign concluding in November will feature more than the usual mud slinging. A reporter in The Forward has already seen signs of “How Islamophobic attacks on Zohran Mamdani target Jewish voters.”
Critical to Mamdani’s late-primary surge was the cross endorsement with City Comptroller Brad Lander (Jacobs’s first choice), a Jewish progressive who supports Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” He was coming in third among the eleven contenders and will now likely receive a high appointment in a Mamdani administration. The following links to the YouTube recording of Lander’s good-humored joint TV appearance, on the eve of Election Day, with Mamdani on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”: https://youtu.be/ClNKD_6ow-g