Mamdani vote makes it clear: Jews are not welcome in NYC

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in Tuesday night’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York is alarming many Jews in the city who say that his anti-Israel rhetoric legitimizes antisemitism and deepens divisions.

Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that Mamdani’s dismissive “attitude to the concerns of New York’s Jewish community during the campaign, particularly its strong support for the State of Israel, is more than troubling.”

“New York is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel,” Mariaschin said. “Over more than three centuries, Jewish New Yorkers have made countless contributions to making it one of the world’s greatest cities.”

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, and William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, spoke to JNS about Mamdani on the sidelines of emergency meetings that their organizations convened in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I’m certainly hoping that that all right-thinking New Yorkers, and certainly our Jewish community, will organize themselves to make sure that there’s a serious opposition in the general election,” Fingerhut said.

Daroff said that he is “very concerned about the normalization of antisemitism in America.”

“Among the battle cries of those who seek to murder Jews is to ‘globalize the intifada,’ and as a purveyor of that attitude, as someone who rationalizes and minimizes and denies the dangers that accrue to the Jewish people and the importance of the State of Israel, it’s deeply concerning,” he said.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS that Mamdani’s electoral success portends trouble for the Jewish community in New York City. 

“As an American Jew and as a human, I am truly frightened that an antisemitic communist, Mamdani, has actually promoted murdering Jews by supporting and legitimizing the antisemitic rally cry ‘globalize the intifada,’ refuses to accept the Jewish State of Israel as a Jewish state and is friendly with Israel-bashing Jew-haters,” Klein said.

Mamdani “has been mainstreamed in the most important Jewish city in America,” he continued. “It is time to make aliyah to Israel.”

Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at the Lawfare Project, told JNS that Mamdani’s victory is more than just a political upset. It marks a dangerous turning point for the city, he said.

“Mamdani has made hostility toward Jews a political brand, proudly championing the BDS campaign, a movement that is nothing more than ethnic and national origin discrimination targeting Jews and Israelis,” he said. 

“Even more alarming, Mamdani refused to distance himself from the slogan ‘globalize the intifada,’ a phrase tied to deadly anti-Jewish violence, effectively downplaying terror against Jews under the guise of ‘struggle’,” Filitti said.

Mamdani’s primary success sends the message that espousing Jew-hatred can be politically rewarding, according to Filitti. 

“New York’s Jews, already facing rising antisemitism and the failure by its elected officials to meaningfully combat it, now must contend with the prospect of a City Hall led by a man whose purported Jew-hatred has been on full display in his politics,” he said, “a reality that threatens to undermine the city’s legacy of tolerance and leave a proud community feeling more vulnerable than ever.”

Ezra Friedlander, who runs an eponymous public relations firm, told JNS that Jewish New Yorkers dismayed with the Democratic primary result should make sure to vote in the November general election. 

“Mamdani is not the mayor-elect,” he said. “He is the Democratic nominee.

“If people are afraid, they have to come together and in all likelihood, vote for Eric Adams,” he said. “You have to translate that fear to action.”

Freildander said he is an optimist, who believes that if Mamdani is elected mayor, he may soften some of his most extremist views. 

“If Mamdani does become mayor, because of what he’s being accused of, he would have to demonstrate that he is a mayor of all New Yorkers, including the Orthodox Jewish community, and be extra sensitive to it,” Friedlander said.

President Donald Trump chimed in on social media, calling Mamdani a “communist lunatic.”

“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line,” Trump said. “We’ve had radical lefties before, but this is getting ridiculous.”

Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who did not compete in the primary but is running as an independent in November through two political parties he created — one called End AntiSemitism, the other Fight and Deliver — called Mamdani “a snake oil salesman.”

During a Fox & Friends appearance on Wednesday, Adams referred to Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rents, make buses free and offer no-cost childcare, concluding that “he would say and do anything to get elected.”

In November, “you are going to get those grandmothers, those granddads, those working-class people who are going to come out because they realize they don’t want to defund their police department. They want police on their block,” Adams said.

“They realize that you have to invest in businesses. … And small property owners are hurting in this city, when you talk about freeze rent and no rent.”

“What NYC deserves is a mayor who’s proud to run on his record, not one who has no record,” Adams said in a statement about Mamdani, 33, who has been in the state Assembly only since 2021. “We deserve a mayor who will keep driving down crime, support our police, fight antisemitism, and stand up for working-class New Yorkers.”

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, said Mamdani is “too extreme for a city already on edge.”

“This is not the time for radical politics,” Sliwa said on X. “It is time for real leadership.”

The Jewish Star contributed to this report.