by Jonathan S. Tobin
Some leaders think they must make nice with the mayor-elect. But how can you work with a hostile mayor who openly sympathizes with those attacking Jewish houses of worship?
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| Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York City, and Jessica Tisch, New York City police commissioner, speak during a news conference after their visit to the New York City Police Memorial on Nov. 19, 2025. Photo by Richard Drew-Pool/Getty Images. |
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in the New York City mayoral election, most Jewish leaders believed that they had no choice but to do their best to cooperate with him. Doing so was in keeping with the traditions of American democracy.
But how do you work with someone who is sending mixed messages to antisemitic mobs about whether it is OK to besiege synagogues and threaten Jews with violence?
That’s the dilemma facing New York Jewry in the wake of Mamdani’s equivocal comments about the siege of Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on the evening of Nov. 19 by an anti-Zionist mob who harassed those entering the building and chanted slogans like “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada” and “Resistance you make us proud, take another settler out.”
Lying about aliyah and international law
Speaking through a spokesman, the mayor-elect issued an anodyne statement about “discouraging” the use of such slogans threatening Jews with violence. It said, “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation.”
Had it stopped right there, it would have been appropriate and engendered no criticism. But Mamdani couldn’t leave it at that. In the same sentence, the statement went on to qualify his condemnation of the incident by declaring that “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
Let’s be clear: What happened in the synagogue that night was no violation of international law. It was a gathering organized by a group that promotes Jewish immigration to Israel. Far from illegal, that’s a right that is secured by international law dating back to the aftermath of the First World War. It was established in the 1920 San Remo Agreement that guaranteed the right of Jews to settle in their ancient homeland, and then the 1922 League of Nations creation of the British Mandate for Palestine in order to implement this principle.
The founding of the modern-day State of Israel as a result of the U.N. 1947 Partition Resolution (or Resolution 181) further clarified the principle.
But to Mamdani, a man who has been obsessed with opposition to the existence of a Jewish state his entire adult life, merely thinking about moving there is wrong and in violation of some entirely fictional “law” in which Jews—unique among all the peoples in the world—are to be forbidden from living in the place where they are indigenous.
The message he was sending to both the antisemitic mob and to the Jews was clear. The 34-year-old may not yet feel comfortable openly supporting incidents in which Jews are threatened with violence and harassed while entering a synagogue. But not even a desire to ensure that he has a honeymoon period with New Yorkers after his election is enough to prevent him from stating unambiguously that he is definitely on the side of those making such threats.
If nothing else, that should give pause to the city’s Jewish establishment, which has spent the weeks since Mamdani’s election signaling to him that they want to make nice with him and have no intention of actively working against a man who has no scruples about siding with antisemites.
An abnormal situation
If this had been a normal mayoral election, that’s exactly what they should be doing.
Many, especially in deep-blue New York, have treated President Donald Trump’s two election victories as an exception to that basic premise of democracy. That notwithstanding, it is necessary for those who back the losing candidates in elections to act as a loyal opposition to the winners, as opposed to a “resistance,” as Trump’s adversaries have done. Whatever one thinks about the outcome, those who care about democracy are obligated to treat the results of the ballot box as legitimate and to work with the victors for the betterment of all citizens.
And that is exactly how Jewish leaders were treating Mamdani. His record of support for antisemitic BDS campaigns and opposition to the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet—not to mention his radical socialist ideas about governing the city—had frightened many Jewish New Yorkers, the overwhelming majority of whom voted against him. But the organized Jewish world made no secret about its readiness to cooperate with the new administration in City Hall.
They cheered the news that Mamdani was prepared to allow Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay in her crucial role, thus sending a message that Jews would not be abandoned. And Mamdani also sent representatives to meet with leaders of the city’s Jewish Federation and Community Relations Council.
Skepticism was warranted. Still, they were prepared to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt. They accepted the premise that his ideological obsession with opposing Israel and opposition to essential elements of Jewish identity related to the Jewish homeland and peoplehood would not impact his duties as mayor or endanger the Jewish community.
But the Nov. 19 incident gave Jewish New Yorkers an unwelcome reminder of what it means to have someone so closely associated with Jew-hatred in a position of power. More than that, they were put on notice about what they are likely to be in for during the next four years.
Making the Jews scared
When Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation whose building is a historic landmark, hosted an event for the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization that promotes aliyah, it was besieged by a mob of more than 200 demonstrators shouting antisemitic slogans and harassing those entering the venue. As the New York Post reported, the swarm of angry Jew-haters chanted the usual litany of slogans that have become familiar since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Their purpose was not merely to state their hostility to Israel or Jews. As one of their leaders told the mob, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events.” As the Post reported, the agitator “repeated emphatically” that “we need to make them scared. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared.”
And by stating that he agreed with the basic premise of their cause, the mayor-elect was telling Jews throughout the city that they had every reason to be afraid for their safety in a New York governed by the incoming mayor. And so, Mamdani needs to be sent an unequivocal message by decent New Yorkers, whether or not they are Jewish, that this kind of messaging is both unacceptable and dangerous.
It’s not just that he was lying about aliyah being a violation of international law rather than a basic right of the Jewish people. He also has no business spouting opinions about what sort of events should be held in synagogues. That’s especially true when those houses of worship are liable to be besieged by bloody-minded protesters who seek to intimidate Jews into silence, when the mayor is making no secret that he is in agreement with the thugs screaming at the Jews.
Despite the pious language about ensuring the safety of those entering synagogues, his talk about Jews holding illegal events is a bright green light to antisemites to repeat this outrage. Under the circumstances, Jews have every right to wonder what’s in store for them in Mamdani’s New York, regardless of Tisch’s continued tenure at the New York City Police Department. Indeed, it may well be a foreshadowing of even worse to come.
That’s why the “business as usual” talk from Jewish leaders has to cease.
It’s true that Jewish organizations need to ensure that there is some cooperation with the city administration when necessary. But they can’t ignore the fact that Mamdani isn’t being shy about telling Jews that they can only consider themselves safe if they disavow an essential element of their identity and faith. Support for Israel and Zionism is integral to being Jewish, and that is something that the overwhelming majority of Jews believe, whether or not they are observant or where their sympathies lie in terms of Israel or American politics.
In essence, Mamdani isn’t hesitating to send a message that he is at war not just with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he continues to threaten with arrest if the Israeli leader visits the city on his watch. Notwithstanding his pledges to be a mayor for all New Yorkers, he’s also at war with Jewish peoplehood. And that is something that no Jewish leader or entity should tolerate or let pass without vigorous protest.
Jewish leaders must act
At this point, responsible Jewish leaders, especially those specifically tasked with monitoring antisemitism and the defense of the Jews, like the Anti-Defamation League, need to stop talking about cooperation and start planning for a campaign of active resistance to Mamdani’s prejudicial attitudes towards Jewish life.
That means not only organizing the kind of demonstrations that make it clear that New Yorkers won’t accept his taking the side of violent thugs advocating for Jewish genocide.
It also should mean a policy of legal action designed to thwart those instances when the mayor and his staff of left-wing agitators and Marxist ideologues start trying to put their ideological obsession with destroying the Jewish state into action with BDS-style discriminatory policies. In addition, they must begin—to the extent that it is possible in a city and state where gun rights are not respected by local authorities—to prepare members of the Jewish community to defend themselves against what is likely to follow.
And they should also declare their willingness to support any actions by the president of the United States, who, though opposed by the liberal Jewish majority in New York, has a demonstrated record of support and friendship for Jews and Israel, intended to hamstring Mamdani’s ability to injure the Jewish community.
The coming months will be a test not only of how far Mamdani will go to antagonize and threaten the Jewish community, but also of the mettle of a generation of Jewish leaders who have heretofore shown little sign of being ready to lead their community in an unprecedented battle for their rights and safety. If they aren’t equal to this challenge, and instead prefer to seek to ingratiate themselves with an antisemitic mayor, then it will be time to replace them with others who are made of sterner stuff.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek
and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American
political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle
East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think
Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin
Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and
YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor
and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.
He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other
writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and
foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia
University.
Source: https://www.jns.org/the-siege-of-park-east-synagogue-and-cooperating-with-mamdani/
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