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On Friday night, early votes had already been cast in their many thousands for Mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who leads the prominent Central Synagogue in Manhattan, took the occasion to slander the democratic socialist candidate, purportedly in the name of Jewish New Yorkers.
“Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism,” Buchdahl said.
Buchdahl didn’t cite any actual antisemitism. Her problem with Mamdani was his criticism of Israel.
Mamdani’s alleged antisemitism? Pointing out, in 2023, the established fact that the Israeli military has trained hundreds of members of the New York Police Department, and that the NYPD and Israeli forces have intelligence sharing agreements. The rabbi also decried Mamdani’s “false claims of genocide” in Gaza — claims shared by leading genocide scholars, and every major international human rights organization.
That is, Buchdahl didn’t — and couldn’t — cite any actual antisemitism on the newly elected mayor’s part. Her problem with Mamdani, as was the case for the array of establishment Jewish voices who spoke out against Mamdani, was his criticism of Israel.
Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City is a victory — or at least offers promise — for so many of the city’s working-class constituents. For our immigrant neighbors, trans siblings, and every New Yorker struggling to pay rent, eat, and access care in this punishingly expensive, brutally unequal place.
It is a particular bright relief that base Islamophobia — entrenched since the September 11 attacks, supercharged during the Gaza genocide, and drenching every campaign against Mamdani — did not prevail.
Antisemitism Smears
Mamdani’s win marks a rejection of the consistently Islamophobic weaponization of antisemitism. I hope it is a turning point, from which other New York institutions learn. Diehard support for the Zionist project is, finally, not a sine qua non of New York City leadership.
If Mamdani’s victory was a victory over Islamophobia and false antisemitism allegations, it was not quite a total one. The significant support for the attacks against Mamdani, and the purchase they found with converts to disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was jarring.
It was depressing for this Jewish writer to see significant numbers of particularly older Jewish voters back the slanders against Mamdani. The explanation, however, is simple enough: The very same Jewish figures and groups have been organizing their political lives around support for a genocidal ethnostate.
With the genocide in Gaza raging, weaponized claims of antisemitism, launched by pro-Israel forces have won the day in this city for over two years. Students, workers, and other protesters stood up to decry their institutions’ complicity in Israel’s onslaught.
At every turn, Democratic leaders bolstered and enforced calls for expressions of Palestinian solidarity to be censured and punished. Mayor Eric Adams sent police to raid Columbia University campus protests at the direct behest of pro-Israel business leaders. Baseless accusations of antisemitism went wholly unchecked.
It was a lesson in cowardice and complicity, which has only served President Donald Trump’s attacks on higher education and anti-Arab, anti-Muslim immigration crackdowns.
Setting an Example
The fact that the majority of young Jewish New Yorkers expressed support for Mamdani, as did some of the most powerful Jewish politicians in the city and the country, should have long ago served to mute the attacks against Mamdani. Yet there will be no reasoning with a worldview that treats support for Palestinian freedom, and criticism of Israel, as a threat to Jewish life.
Mamdani, however, did not have to sacrifice Palestinian solidarity to win this election. He did not have to pander to the endless false claims of antisemitism directed at him at every debate and most every mainstream press interview.
Mamdani did not have to sacrifice Palestinian solidarity to win this election.
And, when he is the mayor, there is every reason to demand that he uphold commitments to Palestinian solidarity, including ending municipal partnerships with the state of Israel as it continues its campaign of mass slaughter, displacement, occupation, and apartheid.
I have no doubt that Mamdani will live up to his vows to support and protect New York’s Jewish communities; there were never any justified grounds to believe otherwise. His mayorship, among so many other things, should set an example of how supporting Jewish New Yorkers can be paired with a refusal to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
“No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election,” said Mamdani Tuesday night, addressing his supporters in Brooklyn, after being declared the next mayor of New York City.
