New York
—
As a Jew and a New Yorker, Norman Needleman mentioned he finds the town’s mayoral election “painful.”
Waiting in line Friday to vote on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the 77-year-old Needleman thought Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, can be good for the town’s social wants. But his positions on Israel had been simply an excessive amount of for Needleman to simply accept.
“If I try and bend that far, I’ll break,” he mentioned, quoting the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”
His feedback mirror what has been a fraught debate, amongst Jews in New York and elsewhere, forward of the town’s mayoral election Tuesday. Jewish voters have lengthy reliably supported Democrats, and Mamdani gained the Democratic main, however issues about rising antisemitism and Mamdani’s sharp criticisms of Israel have opened up a generational split and raised deeper questions what it means to be an American Jew in 2025.
This election has proven clearly that “Jews and Jewish voters are not a monolith,” mentioned Phylisa Wisdom, the director of the New York Jewish Agenda, an advocacy group selling liberal Jewish New Yorkers.
“Folks have been really trying to reckon with how much does it matter that they have a mayor that has their same feelings about Israel,” she mentioned. “There are some who feel like it’s not the most important thing to me when I’m voting for mayor, how they feel about Israel, and there are some who think it’s existential, and they couldn’t vote for someone who disagrees with them on Israel or doesn’t support Israel as a Jewish state.”
The challenge stems from Mamdani’s historical past of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism, from his faculty days when he began a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, to his assist for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement in opposition to Israel, to his pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In more moderen months, Mamdani has tempered a few of his most controversial positions and tried to reassure Jewish voters apprehensive about antisemitic assaults like those in Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado. Democratic Jewish politicians like City Comptroller Brad Lander and Rep. Jerry Nadler have endorsed him, although US Sen. Chuck Schumer stays a notable holdout.
Not everybody has been satisfied.
“Shabbat Shalom. To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue instructed his congregation on October 18.
More than 1,100 rabbis and Jewish leaders throughout the US quickly signed an open letter agreeing with Cosgrove’s message and calling on Americans to “stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.”
Mamdani’s rise comes amid a rising split in the American Jewish voters, notably alongside age strains, about Israel in the wake of the conflict in Gaza the final two years. While 56% of Jewish Americans say they’re emotionally hooked up to Israel, that quantity falls to 36% amongst these aged 18 to 34, in keeping with polling from The Washington Post.
“It’s a tense time in the Jewish family group chats,” Ezra Klein wrote in The New York Times this summer time.
While Mamdani is forward amongst doubtless voters in most public polls, latest polls from Fox News and Marist each had 55% of Jewish doubtless voters in the town backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s working an impartial marketing campaign after dropping to Mamdani in the June Democratic main. Mamdani had 32% with Jewish voters in every ballot.
For voters like Cosgrove, Mamdani’s place on Israel is a dealbreaker. Others, like these in the progressive activist group Jewish Voices for Peace, see it as a constructive. Still many different Jews see Mamdani’s views on Israel as much less necessary than his different proposed insurance policies: freezing will increase on the town’s rent-stabilized residences, specializing in affordability and standing as much as President Donald Trump.
Not to say Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa have their very own drawbacks.
“I hate my choices,” mentioned Cydney Schwartz, a 33-year-old liberal Democrat who has lived in Israel.
What Mamdani has mentioned about Israel and Jews
Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel advocacy have been a key throughline of his political views.
Mamdani has declined to say he believes Israel has the suitable to exist as a Jewish state, saying the nation ought to present equal rights to all residents. He beforehand refused to sentence the phrase “globalize the intifada,” referencing an Arabic time period utilized by Palestinians to explain their rebellion in opposition to Israel. He has not too long ago mentioned he would discourage the use of the phrase.
A day after the October 7, 2023, Hamas assaults on Israel, which sparked the devastating conflict in Gaza, Mamdani issued a press release that didn’t condemn Hamas or the assaults. He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s actions as a “genocide” and mentioned he would arrest Netanyahu if he visits New York, citing a warrant from the International Criminal Court, of which the US just isn’t a member.
Earlier this week, a September 2023 video of him connecting New York Police Department oppression to the Israel Defense Forces unfold extensively on-line.
“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” he said then at a Democratic Socialists of America conference.
Asked about that line final week, he instructed NCS’s Anderson Cooper, “It was a reference to training exercises that have taken place between the NYPD and the IDF.”
“So do you still believe that the NYPD is basically working hand in glove with the IDF?” Cooper requested.
“No. What I’ve made very clear is those are training exercises that are of concern to me,” Mamdani replied. “And what my focus is, is on working with the NYPD to actually deliver public safety for New Yorkers across the five boroughs.”
Zohran Mamdani on Pres. Trump’s threats if he is elected NYC mayor
Still, after his victory in the Democratic main, he pledged to “understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements.”
During Rosh Hashanah, Mamdani attended companies at Kolot Chayeinu, one in every of Brooklyn’s most progressive synagogues. For Yom Kippur, thought of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Mamdani attended companies at Lab Shul, a non-denominational Jewish congregation, accompanied by Jewish political allies in Nadler and Lander.
He has met with Hasidic leaders, together with two distinguished rabbis from Williamsburg’s Satmar neighborhood, an ultra-Orthodox sect with its personal set of calls for for metropolis authorities.
He has promised he would preserve in place police safety for the town’s annual parade honoring Israel. And he has mentioned he would not have an Israel-related litmus take a look at for working in his administration.
“I’m going to have people in my administration who are Zionists,” he mentioned, in keeping with The Free Press.
“Two Jews, three opinions,” goes the outdated joke, a play on the faith’s custom of debate, and that was evident in conversations with liberal Jews voting for mayor Friday.
“They’re figuring it out,” Wisdom mentioned. “There’s a lot of out-loud figuring it out.”
Schwartz, the 33-year-old liberal who has lived in Israel, mentioned she feels a robust connection to the nation. Still, she mentioned, she didn’t agree with Israel’s politics or Netanyahu, equally to how she disagrees with Trump’s politics in the US.
She thought of not voting, however in the end picked a candidate, who she declined to share. “I want to focus on the city I live in,” she mentioned.
David, a 29-year-old carrying a yarmulke who declined to offer his final identify, mentioned the vote felt like an “existential” determination. He mentioned he didn’t notably care about how the mayor feels about Israel, however Mamdani’s give attention to Israeli-Palestinian politics made it laborious to imagine he’s not antisemitic, and he apprehensive whether or not that would bleed into different insurance policies.
He mentioned he deliberate to vote for Cuomo “reluctantly.” “He’s bad on everything,” David mentioned of his most popular selection. “He’s a bad person.”
Eric Weltman, a 58-year-old carrying a go well with and tie, proudly mentioned he voted for Mamdani.
“He’s smart, competent, principled and progressive,” he mentioned, including he had no qualms about Mamdani’s positions on Israel.
“He’s going to be mayor of New York, not ambassador to Israel,” he mentioned.
As for Needleman, the 77-year-old who quoted “Fiddler,” he mentioned he couldn’t assist Mamdani and felt Cuomo was too dishonest. So he determined to vote for Sliwa although he disagreed with the Republican’s politics, saying Sliwa appeared like a “decent guy.”