There can be little doubt that Democratic Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani poses a threat to the safety of New York City Jews. A public letter by NYC rabbis last week declaring their menace has grown from hundreds of signatures to over 1,000. And across the Hudson River, more than 100 New Jersey rabbis have since echoed their call.
But more than merely a threat to New York City Jews, Zohran Mamdani is the greatest threat to global Jewry of the 21st century.
That threat extends far beyond the antisemitism allegations that have shadowed Mamdani’s campaign. In many ways, those charges don’t even matter. Zohran Mamdani is antisemetic because there are Jews who believe he is antisemetic — just like he’d be considered racist if there were African-Americans who believed he was anti-Black. Or homophobic if LGBTs accused him of being anti-Gay. That’s how claims of "oppression" work in America; we’re compelled to believe accusers simply because they accuse — except, of course, when those accusers are Jewish.
At the center of this threat isn’t Mamdani’s paper-trail of well-known anti-Israel slams — such as his reluctance to condemn Hamas or murderous calls to “globalize the intifada.” This is standard progressive language of the cosmopolitan, Millennial elite of which Mamdani is now the best-known caricature. What makes Mamdani so dangerous is his masterful ability to use Jews to convince other Jews he’s not antisemitic. More odious still is how he’s used this tactic to manipulate no other minority besides Jews.
We’ve seen these tactics at work throughout the campaign: Mamdani’s penchant for appearing at events with prominent Jewish surrogates, such as New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who, like Mamdani, is a vocal supporter of the BDS movement. Or the endless number of well-branded “Jews for Mamdani” campaigners fanning across New York to advocate for his agenda. Or his high-profile Sukkot visits (accompanied by Lander) to Satmar Jewish groups in Brooklyn. To the untrained eye, this looked as if even the most observant Jews were warming up to Mamdani. But he’s playing New York once again; the Satmars are infamously anti-Zionist.
No such identity-politics efforts have been extended to, say, African-American or Gay and Lesbian organizations, despite a handful of high-profile missteps that have placed Mamdani in their crosshairs. Like pro-Palestinian activists — most malignantly since the Hamas attack on Israel two Octobers ago — Mamdani only conscripts Jews to “prove” his philosemitism and dubious insistence that he will govern a New York City that will be safe for them.
What makes Mamdani’s menace even more odious is how he’s been given almost carte blanche by mainstream media — America’s traditional first line of defense against dangerous racial and religious provocation. No other cultural figure, for instance, would have been allowed, as Mamdani was, to allege a Hindu-led genocide in the Indian state of Gujarat took place in 2002, when no such massacre occurred.
“We don’t even believe there are Gujarati Muslims anymore,” said Mamdani at a candidates’ forum earlier this year. Turns out there are actually 7 million Muslims in Gujarat — a full 10% of the state’s population. Indians, both in India and New York, were outraged by Mamdani’s blood libel.
But no matter. Yet again, Mamdani evaded either political critique or consequence, reducing even the most egregious blunder to a mere news blip and minor campaign inconvenience. But not with Israel and Jews. No one is talking about Mamdani and Gujarat and “genocide.” Aided by his self-defeating Jewish surrogates, no one can stop talking about Mamdani and Israel and “genocide.” Just how Zohran Mamdani wants it.
Mamdani’s relentless centering of Israel — its legitimacy and Jewishness — to fuel his campaign betrays a double standard demanded of no other ethnic group. And this double-standard — Mamdani’s calculated, arrogant Judeo-mania — this is the antisemitism those hundreds of rabbis are warning about.
It’s the kind of arrogance that says, “Why defend charges of Jew-hate when I can have Jews themselves do it for me.” And if elected, this once-casual — yet now commonplace — manipulation of Jewish fear and beneficence is certain to become embedded in culture and politics across the nation. It’s already happening.
Just this week, prominent entertainment industry Jewish figures, including Oscar winners Debra Winger and Jonathan Glazer, signed an open letter to global political leaders asking for Israel’s government to be held accountable for “violations of international law.” It’s classic Mamdani-ism gone Hollywood: Jews against Jews on behalf of Muslims (or Blacks or any other officially “imperiled” minority) — except, of course, for Jews themselves.
The most insidious element of woke culture is how it convinces perfectly reasonable people to act against their own best interests. And when it comes to New York City’s mayoral race and New York City’s Jews, this is exactly what Zohran Mamdani is counting on.
David Christopher Kaufman is a former New York Post editor and columnist and Adjunct Fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute. He is a regular contributor to The Telegraph, The Spectator, AirMail and Monocle