Mamdani makes nice with the Jews who don’t speak for us
He understands very well that the best way to blunt accusations of antisemitism is to assemble a group of Jewish sycophants around him.
By Ben Cohen
JNS
Sep 26, 2025
Barring a black-swan event, Democratic Party candidate Zohran Mamdani will emerge as the winner of New York City’s mayoral election on Nov. 4. The current polls show him with an insurmountable lead over his three rivals, with the momentum behind him likely to consolidate even further as Election Day approaches.
This is a moment of reckoning, then, for New York’s Jewish community, as a declared enemy of the State of Israel takes the helm of a city so defined by its Jewish population that it was once insultingly referred to as “Hymietown” by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. These days, “Mamdanistan” may be a more accurate descriptor for what lies in store going forward.
Mamdani is the sort of candidate who could only emerge at a time when conspiracy theories have overwhelmed much of the left and the right alike, with both ends of the spectrum mired in identitarian politics. Israel is one issue on which both extremes intersect, with their positions rooted in deeply antisemitic notions.
Much as it is now, antizionism was rife in far-left circles at the height of the Cold War. The difference is that back then, if a right-wing political commentator like Tucker Carlson, who was booted out of his cable-TV host spot on Fox News in the fall of 2023, had invoked the crucifixion of Jesus as a means of explaining Israel’s supposed desire to eliminate its antagonists, he would have been loudly condemned in the left-wing press for reviving ancient antisemitic libels. These days, the left either ignores such things, or—as the response to Carlson’s demented rant about the murder of Charlie Kirk attests—agrees with them.
A Mamdani victory will serve as additional confirmation of the Democratic Party’s swing to the antisemitic far left, with its centrists frozen out as it further aligns itself with the cause of socialism. Like the New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani is a poster child for this pivot: young, affable, photogenic, always smiling, social-media savvy and fond of words like “healing.”
As is always the case on the left, as Mamdani grasps the reins of power, there will be a core of activists—not remotely photogenic, not remotely affable, and who pepper their speeches with words like “revolution” and “imperialism,” who will sooner or later denounce him as a “sellout.”
Most of us, thankfully, do not live and breathe the sectarian battles of the left. Hence, any sniping at Mamdani from his erstwhile comrades will make little difference to how he is perceived by the bulk of New York’s Jews, though, as I will explain, his Jewish supporters have a key role to play.
Mamdani is a product of Students for Justice in Palestine, a violently antisemitic group that proudly identifies with the rapists and murderers of Hamas. He supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to “globalize the intifada.” He rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state. In other words, he is not simply opposed to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. He is opposed to the idea and the very existence of Israel, and has been long before the Hamas-led pogrom of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his campaign, Mamdani has artfully attempted to soften the edges of these positions in a bid to appeal to Jewish voters, as well as to calm down those New Yorkers who don’t believe that his views on crime, policing and housing are the answer to this city’s swelling problems of poor infrastructure, diminished public services and eyewatering expenses from groceries to rent.
We might forlornly hope that he will have no time to worry about Israel and the Palestinians, given both these challenges and the undoubted hostility that he will encounter from the Trump administration in Washington. Yet that ignores the power that performative politics exercises in this febrile period of history. As influencers like Carlson have discovered, Jerusalem is an animating subject. Just as Arab leaders used to trot out “Israel” as the excuse for their failure to provide their subject populations with basic rights, jobs and education, Mamdani and his ilk will do the same.
At the same time, Mamdani is transitioning from professional activist to professional politician. He understands very well that the best way to blunt accusations of antisemitism is to assemble a group of Jewish sycophants around him, skillfully playing to their parochial fears that pesky, colonial Israel is driving a wedge between them and the rest of the left.
That was why, on Rosh Hashanah, Mamdani was the guest of honor at Kolot Chayeinu, a Brooklyn synagogue known, as The New York Times observed in an extensive write-up of the event, for its progressive activism and the presence of Jewish anti-Zionists in the congregation. The vast majority of Jews—Orthodox, Conservative and Reform—would balk at the thought of a synagogue where the rabbi uses his sermon to accuse Israel of “genocide,” and where kippahs are optional but face masks are not. Someone wearing a kippah and a tallit, but not a mask, would have been turfed out of the proceedings. Someone wearing a mask decked in the colors of the Palestinian flag would have been welcomed with open arms.
For Mamdani, this is the acceptable face of the Jewish community. For most Jews, this is not a synagogue worthy of the name.
As long as he associates only with Jews whose identity revolves around denunciations of Israel and Zionism while failing to revise, or apologize for, his own lengthy record of Israel-hatred, Mamdani will make no inroads with the mainstream Jewish community. Indeed, the mistrust and alienation will only intensify if the only Jews he appears with are those like Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who loathes Israel, and who are destined to play a similar role to the “Yevsektsiya”: the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party dedicated to purging religious practice, the teaching of Hebrew and the spread of Zionist beliefs among Jews in revolutionary Russia.
In such an environment, the only path available to pro-Israel Jews in New York is to boycott Mamdani. No mainstream Jewish institution should offer him a platform. His administration should be forensically monitored for any and all acts of anti-Jewish discrimination dressed up as opposition to Zionism.
Any politician, whether Democrat or Republican, who appears alongside him should be treated as suspect—unless, of course, they do so as adversaries. Finally, the campaign to oust him four years from now needs to begin right now.
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