New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was confronted by a Jewish activist who accused him of contributing to antisemitism during a visit to a prominent Judaica store in Brooklyn’s heavily Orthodox Borough Park neighborhood ahead of Rosh Hashanah.
Mamdani visited Eichler’s Judaica on Wednesday as part of his first visit as mayor to Borough Park, meeting Orthodox community leaders and touring the nearly 40-year-old Jewish bookstore and religious-goods shop. Video released from the visit showed local leaders presenting him with honey for the Jewish New Year and a City Hall staffer demonstrating the blowing of a shofar. Mamdani wished those present “Shanah tovah.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani
(Photo: Angelina Katsanis/AP)
The cordial visit was interrupted when Stephanie Benshimol, a pro-Israel Jewish activist who describes herself as an American-Israeli Zionist and a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, confronted the mayor inside the store.
“You’re the reason we have so much antisemitism,” Benshimol shouted, according to footage of the encounter. She also criticized Mamdani for appearing at a Jewish store shortly before Rosh Hashanah and told him he had “such chutzpah for coming here.”
Video circulating on social media showed Mamdani smiling but not responding directly as Benshimol continued speaking. She was then escorted away from the mayor and out of the immediate area. One local report said security personnel removed her from the store as Mamdani was ushered away.
Benshimol later criticized Eichler’s for hosting the mayor, arguing that a ceremonial visit to a Jewish neighborhood should not substitute for action to protect Jewish New Yorkers.
The confrontation comes amid an ongoing dispute between Mamdani and parts of New York’s Jewish community over his fierce criticism of Israel and the relationship between that rhetoric and antisemitism in the city.
NYPD figures show that anti-Jewish offenses remain by far the largest category of confirmed hate crimes in New York. During the first half of 2026, 178 of the city’s 322 confirmed hate crimes were anti-Jewish, or 55.3%, up from 174 during the same period in 2025. Jewish New Yorkers account for roughly 10% of the city’s population, according to the NYPD.
Those statistics do not establish that Mamdani caused the increase, as Benshimol alleged.
Mamdani has maintained that his administration is committed to fighting antisemitism. Last month, after meeting a group of rabbis and Jewish leaders, he said City Hall was expanding its Office to Combat Antisemitism and developing what he described as a first-of-its-kind municipal plan against anti-Jewish hatred.
“My door will always be open to every Jewish New Yorker,” Mamdani said at the time, promising both dialogue and action to ensure that Jewish residents feel safe and that they belong in the city.
But several rabbis who attended that meeting told Jewish Insider they had urged Mamdani to reconsider his rhetoric about Israel, arguing that his repeated focus on the Jewish state was alienating Jewish New Yorkers and potentially making efforts to combat antisemitism more difficult. Mamdani did not publicly commit to changing that rhetoric.
Wednesday’s Borough Park visit highlighted the complicated relationship Mamdani has developed with the city’s Jewish communities. While he has faced deep opposition from many Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, he has also cultivated relationships with Hasidic leaders, including figures in the Satmar community.
During the Eichler’s visit, Mamdani met representatives including Avi Greenstein of the Borough Park Jewish Community Council and Rabbi Yakov Landau of Satmar institutions, while touring displays of shofars and other items used for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
The visit came just over a week before Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of September 11.