Recent polling data shows that the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has more support from Jewish voters than any of his opponents to his right.
At least two of them, a former governor who had to resign in disgrace over sexual harassment allegations and an unpopular incumbent mayor mired in corruption issues, have ridden the bandwagon that purports that Mamdani’s support of the Palestinian people enflames Antisemitism and alienates Jews.
It hasn’t worked, clearly.
I have met Mamdani many times, both as a supporter and as a journalist, and to me it’s clear why he’s popular. He’s youthful but not childish, relatable while still being able to command an audience and is not only willing to listen to regular people but seems to actually enjoy it more than speaking.
The fact that he is a South Asian Ugandan and a Muslim would certainly be historic if elected, but like a lot of people, these aren’t the central factors of his personality.
A democratic socialist, Mamdani is also speaking to many of the issues that most New Yorkers, regardless of their identity, care about: housing affordability, child care availability, reliable transit, education and good jobs.
Yet, his right-wing opposition attacks him on grounds that his socialism is unachievable and would wreck the city.
These arguments tend to fail with voters, especially young ones, because they are more scared of high rents and low pay than higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
However, the idea that Mamdani’s support for the Palestinian struggle has New York City’s Jewish population feeling scared is also, to use a polite term, erroneous.
Mamdani isn’t just winning over Jewish voters, according to the data. He has the support of Brad Lander, a progressive Jew and the city’s chief fiduciary officer, and of groups like Jews for Economic and Racial Justice. Jews are working at all levels of his campaign.
Ironically, Mamdani’s conservative opposition is employing an Antisemitic trope against his campaign: “the Jews”, a singular and monolithic bloc of voters, are only interested in a candidate’s fealty to the Israeli government and not local issues.
This is a bizarrely dehumanising way to treat Jewish teachers, civil servants, lawyers, students and artists.
To invoke Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, if you raise our rent, do we not fall into arrears? If you cut our transit service, are we not late for work? If you defund our schools, do our children not learn?
Hatred of Mamdani has made its way to Europe, largely because New York City is so global that its politics are a global indicator.
Far-right British journalist Melanie Phillips wrote on X:
Zohran Mamdani leads among Jewish voters by a 17-point margin in the race to become New York City’s next mayor. Mamdani, a Shia ‘Twelver’ Islamist, will bankrupt and Islamise New York and pose a threat to its Jewish community. With their Pavlovian reflex to support the Democratic party and its anti-west, anti-white, anti-Jewish ideological dogmas, it was entirely predictable that before long these US Jews would themselves become a threat to the Jewish people. That moment has arrived.
Similarly, in a Times of London op-ed, Aliza Licht argued that Mamdani “believes he can charm New York’s Jewish community into voting for him” but “we’re”–and keep your eye on the singular totalizing use of the word we –“not fooled”.
And there you have it. The Jews are in political trouble, and the Jews are to blame for it. All this, from reactionary journalists. Go figure.
Jewish community leaders are in similar denial. In an interview with the New York Times, Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, compared anti-Zionist Jews (a great many of whom are supporting Mamdani) to Black and Latino Trump supporters.
Greenblatt then challenges his interviewer, countering the idea that Jewish hostility to an ethnostate is on the rise:
“Have you gone to any of the mainstream synagogues in New York City, the ones with the largest membership, and asked them? I would encourage you to go to 92nd Street Y. Go to the West Side J.C.C. Go to Central, Park Avenue, Rodeph Sholom, go to KJ.”
As writers like Benjamin Balthaser have pointed out, for Greenblatt, who is representative of the Jewish political establishment in the US, what really matters is the opinion of Jews in well-to-do, bourgeois institutions.
Jews elsewhere in the city, both in terms of their socio-economic status and geography, are apparently fringe and thus irrelevant.
There is no doubt that support for Israel is a very important issue for some of the city’s Jews, who will cast their votes for other people in a few months.
Nevertheless, Mamdani’s political success this year should be humbling for a lot of people in the political establishment, and among the changes media and machine politicians should make is to stop treating “Jewish voters” like they are all cadres of a Zionist monolith.
We are people who occupy all parts of the political spectrum. We are often connected to other ethnic communities in the city–like the Latin barrios and the Chinatowns–not just the Jewish ones.
Jews are workers, tenants, subway riders and public school parents, and all of this motivates how we vote locally. But mainstream commentators, even Jewish ones, don’t make those connections.
This kind of Antisemitism is related to the Islamophobia hurled at Mamdani, too, as it assumes that the New York Muslims – the cab drivers, the halal grocers, the cops, the doctors and the engineers – are Salafists instead of workers and taxpayers who navigate the city like anyone else.
It’s a reminder that Antisemitism and Islamophobia are different variations of a common bigotry: we’re outsiders in New York City–alongside Berlin, London, and Paris–and our political desires reside in ancient Babylonia rather than the so-called Diaspora.
This is why the opposition’s attempt to smear Mamdani as an Antisemite isn’t just offensive toward him. It is an offence to a great many Jews in the city who are a part of his coalition because he offers the most economic hope for us and our families.
It’s hurtful to us that this smear is being used against both Mamdani and his Jewish supporters. But, given its ineffectiveness, it’s a sign we have our priorities straight and are unlikely to succumb to accusations of racism and fearmongering.
Photograph courtesy of Bingjiefu He/Wikipedia. Published under a Creative Commons license.
