New York’s Jewish community divided, anxious as city faces potential first Muslim mayor

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s Jewish community — the largest in the United States — abounds with anxiety and friction a day ahead of an election that could give the city its first Muslim mayor.

That candidate, Zohran Mamdani, has won over many progressive Jewish voters with vows to make the city more affordable and equitable. Yet he has alarmed many other Jews — in New York and across the U.S. — with harsh criticism of Israel, including saying its military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

The tensions within the politically diverse community were illustrated Friday in a sermon by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who leads Central Synagogue in Manhattan, one of the country’s most prominent Reform synagogues.

She pointedly criticized Mamdani’s words about Israel, yet declined to endorse either of his opponents, Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, and pleaded for New York’s Jews to minimize virulent political infighting.

“It endangers all of us: It’s the way we are trying to impose a litmus test on other Jews, essentially saying you’re either with us or you’re against us,” she said.

A local election in the national spotlight

Buchdahl has faced some criticism for not signing a statement endorsed by more than 1,000 Jewish clergy members nationwide denouncing Mamdani. She said that on principle, she doesn’t endorse candidates or sign joint statements, but she interrupted her sabbatical schedule to return to her pulpit the weekend before the election.

In the sermon, Buchdahl said Mamdani has “contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism” with words that she said were not only “demonizing Israelis, but echoing the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews across the world are the root cause of our problem here.”

Mamdani has made overtures to Jewish voters throughout the campaign, promising to increase funding to investigate antisemitic incidents in New York and repeatedly condemning violence in the Middle East. He has also denounced “atrocities” committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, describing the attacks as a “horrific war crime.”

But Mamdani has not retreated from his long-standing support for Palestinian rights. He also has said he would direct the city’s police department to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York on charges brought by the International Criminal Court.

In response to allegations that his views amount to antisemitism, Mamdani has often quoted an Israeli man whose brother was killed on Oct. 7, saying that “we must never give up on the conviction that all life, Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab, is equally precious.”

Buchdahl, in her sermon, said she recognizes the voices of younger Jews who say they shouldn’t fearfully vote based on a “single issue when other issues are just as urgent.” They cite Mamdani’s outreach to Jewish leaders and his moderated rhetoric.

“I would not quickly trust a campaigning politician changing his lifelong positions, but I hear those who believe that we must engage even with those we deeply disagree with or risk isolating ourselves,” Buchdahl said.

Leading rabbi: It’s not a simple choice

Like Buchdahl, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, New York-based Rabbi Rick Jacobs, said he was sticking by his long-held decision to avoid making political endorsements.

“If you think the choice for mayor is simple, I respectfully suggest that you are not paying attention,” Jacobs wrote in an open letter last week. “I implore our Jewish community and all New Yorkers to carefully consider the many urgent issues our city faces before casting your vote.”

“I can attest that Zohran Mamdani is not lacking in empathy for the Jewish community’s anxiety over regular threats to our safety. In public interviews and in a personal meeting, I’ve heard him pledge to protect the Jewish community,” wrote Jacobs, before raising doubts about the Democratic candidate.

“Mamdani has been consistent in saying that he believes Israel has a right to exist as a state of all its citizens, but not as a Jewish state,” Jacobs wrote. “His argument might sound tidy in a seminar; in the real world it is cause for grave concern.”

Among the signatories of the anti-Mamdani statement was a prominent Conservative rabbi from New York, Elliot Cosgrove.

“To be clear, unequivocal and on the record, I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community,” Cosgrove declared at the start of a recent sermon at Park Avenue Synagogue.

“Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination — these are not political preferences or partisan talking points,” Cosgrove added. “They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity.”

Even Hasidic leaders are divided

As evidence of the divisions within Jewish ranks, there have been competing endorsements of Mamdani and Cuomo by leaders of different factions within the Satmar Hasidic community.

On Sunday, Rabbi Moshe Indig, a leader of the community’s Ahronim branch, declared his support for Mamdani, posing in a handshake with the candidate at a meeting in Brooklyn. Within hours, three other leaders of the branch repudiated Indig’s action and endorsed Cuomo.

“Across the board, the progressive movement’s crusading agenda is a threat to our ability to live as Torah Jews and educate our children with the same values,” the pro-Cuomo leaders said.

To the left of the political center, New York-based author and commentator Peter Beinhart spoke in a recent video of his dismay at the vitriol being directed at Mamdani by many Jewish leaders.

Beinhart said he worries “that the organized American Jewish community was willing to sacrifice almost anything to preserve unconditional support for the state of Israel, that every other value, every other principle was subordinated to that.”

“What are you willing to sacrifice in order to prevent a New York mayor who says that Israeli Jews and Palestinians should live equally under the same law? What are you willing to try to do to destroy such a candidate? The answer is: lie with almost anyone, do almost anything.”

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Smith reported from Pittsburgh. AP journalist Jake Offenhartz contributed from New York.

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