An existential threat: New York cannot have a mayor who fans the flames of antisemitism - opinion
For mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to say Israel does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state, he is aligning himself with the world's most notorious antisemites.
For more than 40 years, I have served as a rabbinic leader in New York, building bridges across faith communities and ethnicities. In all that time, I have never encountered a political figure as dangerously divisive and indifferent to Jewish concerns as Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani is running for mayor while embracing rhetoric and positions that are fueling an unprecedented climate of fear for Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani has repeatedly been recorded chanting for “BDS” on camera at violent antisemitic protests, where dangerous slogans, such as "one solution, intifada resolution" and "globalize the intifada," were heard. This is a clear attack on Jewish New Yorkers and an incitement to violence.
He refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, a position that is deeply offensive to Jewish people who have endured 2,500 years of persecution and oppression. The right of return to our homeland is not a political bargaining chip. It is a matter of survival.
Mamdani would not even support a resolution condemning the Holocaust. As Politico reported, in January, he declined to co-sponsor New York State’s Holocaust Remembrance resolution. His campaign later claimed he supported it by voice vote, but his refusal to visibly stand behind it speaks volumes.
Mamdani has also trafficked in antisemitic tropes, with false claims that New York lawmakers’ trips to Israel are funded by taxpayers, when they have been historically privately funded through numerous philanthropic organizations.
During the recent mayoral debate, Mamdani would not affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Instead of saying yes, like any individual with an ounce of knowledge of what brutality Jews faced before Israel’s existence, he provided listeners with some word salad, saying Israel should be “a state with equal rights.
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, by contrast, is standing up for the Jewish community at a moment of real danger. During the debate, he directly addressed the rising antisemitism facing our city and made it clear that Mamdani’s rhetoric is part of a larger problem. The same rhetoric that led to Jews being gunned down in front of the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, and a man throwing Molotov cocktails at Jews in Boulder, Colorado, in which both attackers screamed “Free Palestine.”
The largest Jewish community outside of Israel faces an existential threat
How is it possible that the largest Jewish community outside of Israel is now facing an existential threat in New York City politics unlike ever before? We are seeing a historic rise in antisemitic attacks in New York City, and we cannot have a mayor who sets fire to the antisemitic flame.To oppose the largest Jewish community outside of Israel so blatantly is beyond the pale. It is a sheer hatred for the Jewish right of self-determination in our Biblical homeland after millennia of suffering, culminating with the Holocaust. For Mamdani to say Israel does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state, he is aligning himself with the world’s most notorious antisemites and showing us that he is comfortable with offending Jews across our great city.
This is why every registered Jewish Democrat in New York City must show up and vote in the Democratic primary on June 24th. We have both an obligation and a responsibility to protect ourselves and our families, thus making it clear that we will not tolerate any form of antisemitism or anti-Israel rhetoric and diatribe.
Our safety is on the ballot. The stakes could not be higher.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, one of New York’s most prominent religious figures, is recognized as a global leader in interfaith relations.
