Uncategorized
Andrew Cuomo said antisemitism was his ‘most important issue.’ What does his record say?
At an Upper West Side synagogue in April, Andrew Cuomo pronounced “the most important issue” in his campaign for mayor of New York City: antisemitism.
The former governor has centered an appeal to Jewish New Yorkers as he seeks to defeat the race’s frontrunner, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a staunch critic of Israel. In the same speech at the West Side Institutional Synagogue, Cuomo declared a belief that has defined his attitude toward Israel and antisemitism for decades.
“It’s very simple,” he said. “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”
Cuomo proceeded to lose the Democratic primary to Mamdani and relaunch his campaign as an independent in the general election. Now polling second but far behind Mamdani, he contends that his vow to defend Jews lies at the heart of his bid to lead the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. He himself has two Jewish brother-in-laws and a Jewish son-in-law who joined his family last year.
Here is a breakdown of Cuomo’s history, rhetoric and policies surrounding Jews, Israel and antisemitism.
(Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
Tackling antisemitism
Cuomo has long touted deep ties to Jewish New Yorkers. In a 2002 interview with New York Jewish Week, he described being “raised in a community in Queens with Jewish people,” and he often references his Jewish in-laws.
While he was governor from 2011 to 2021, New York saw a string of attacks on Jews. In 2019 alone, those included assaults on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, the stabbing of five people at a rabbi’s house in Monsey, and a shooting that killed four people at a kosher supermarket just over the border in Jersey City.
Cuomo responded with several public measures. He formed a hate crimes unit in the state police, allocated $45 million to protect religious-based institutions and upped policing in Jewish neighborhoods. In 2020, he passed a law that made New York the first state to define “hate-fueled” murder as domestic terrorism, punishable by up to life in prison without parole.
During his mayoral bid, Cuomo has honed in on fighting antisemitism, often in the same breath as calling himself a stalwart supporter of Israel and a pillar against pro-Palestinian activism. He warned the crowd at the West Side Institutional Synagogue, “The forces of antisemitism and pro-Palestinian policies are organized, well funded and mobilized, and have significant political strength, even right here in the city of New York.”
At the center of Cuomo’s pitch to Jewish voters is the alternative of Mamdani, whom he has accused of “fueling antisemitism.” Mamdani says that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and supports a boycott against Israel. Cuomo says his opponent’s positions have contributed to a breeding ground for hatred and violence against Jews, while also acknowledging that Mamdani has many younger, pro-Palestinian Jewish supporters.
A long relationship with Israel
For decades, Cuomo has emphasized his “hyper aggressive” support for Israel. He visited during the 2014 Gaza War, touring a tunnel that Israel said was built by Hamas and expressing “total solidarity” with Israel.
In 2016, he passed a controversial order that banned state agencies from investing in companies and organizations that promoted or engaged in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The order also required the state to create a public list of businesses aligned with BDS.
“If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you,” Cuomo said at the time. “If you divert revenues from Israel, New York will divert revenues from you. If you sanction Israel, New York will sanction you.”
The measure was praised by pro-Israel groups, who hold that BDS seeks to harm or destroy Israel. Critics, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the order infringed on First Amendment rights because boycotts are a form of free speech. Some activists also compared the public list of companies with McCarthyism. Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports BDS, protested outside Cuomo’s office.
In November 2024, Cuomo volunteered to join Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal defense against a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, which charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Cuomo said at the time, “This is the moment that true friends stand up, shoulder to shoulder and fight for the State of Israel.” But by August, Cuomo said he had not been involved in defending Netanyahu since his mayoral campaign began.
During the mayoral primary, Cuomo criticized progressive candidates beyond Mamdani for their stances on Israel — including Brad Lander, the Jewish city comptroller and Netanyahu critic who cross-endorsed Mamdani. Cuomo accused Lander and City Council speaker Adrienne Adams of “aiding and supporting the most aggressive anti-Israel policies.”
Lander responded furiously at the West Side Institutional Synagogue, the same congregation where Cuomo spoke. “Somehow, we Jews have become political pawns,” said Lander. “See something or someone you don’t like? Call it antisemitism, in a cheap, craven attempt to lure in Jewish support.”
Andrew Cuomo speaks at the town hall hosted by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council, in Midtown Manhattan, May 22, 2025. (Michael Priest Photography)
Clashing with Jews
Cuomo cultivated strong ties with Jewish leaders while he was governor, but some of those relationships hit rocky periods.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Cuomo restricted gatherings and closed schools in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. He singled the community out for spreading infections “because of their religious practices” during a press conference, setting off street demonstrations among Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.
In response to the order limiting religious gatherings, Agudath Israel of America, which represents Haredi Orthodox Jews, filed a federal lawsuit claiming their civil and religious liberties were violated. Agdath won the suit in a 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Cuomo also came under fire for allegedly disparaging an event celebrating Sukkot, when Jews gather under temporary huts often covered in tree branches, during his campaign for attorney general in 2006. He commented to his team, “These people and their f***ing tree houses,” according to The New York Times Magazine. His spokesperson denied the incident.
His friendship with Jews was also deeply tested by the sexual misconduct probe that toppled his governorship in 2021. A slew of Jewish Democrats called for his resignation, including party leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerry Nadler. So did several liberal and progressive Jewish groups, such as the New York Jewish Agenda and Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.
Andrew Cuomo speaks outside the West Side Institutional Synagogue, April 1, 2025, New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The Gaza war
Cuomo’s identification as one of Israel’s fiercest defenders has been complicated by the country’s increasingly unpopular war in Gaza.
Despite maintaining in September that he is “100% pro-Israel” and “the most aggressive governor in the country on behalf of Israel,” Cuomo now supplements his condemnations of Hamas with a call to end to the war that he indirectly acknowledges has devastated Gaza. His choice of words, referencing “the carnage every night on TV” and “horrific” violence, could be interpreted as sympathetic to the deaths of more than 66,000 Palestinians — though he never directly names them.
Cuomo has also placed more distance between himself and Netanyahu, whom he once sought to represent in court. “I never stood with Bibi,” he told The New York Times in September, saying that his legal argument was about the ICC’s jurisdiction and he had no alliance with the Israeli leader.
His shift in tone could reflect declining public opinion of Israel in the United States. Across the electorate, Quinnipiac polling shows an all-time low for sympathies with Israelis and an all-time high for sympathies with Palestinians. In New York City, a Times/Siena poll found that voters preferred Mamdani’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over any other candidate’s by a wide margin.
Still, Cuomo has not explicitly criticized Israel’s conduct. After appearing to say in August that he did not support “what the Israel government is doing vis-à-vis Gaza” and “Israel impeding humanitarian aid,” he quickly backed off. He was simply “airing what some people feel,” not giving his own personal opinion, he clarified to The New York Times.
In a recent interview with The Forward, Cuomo said his position on Israel “hasn’t shifted one iota.”
“We want three things: We want killing to stop, because it’s a matter of humanity. We want the hostages returned, and Hamas eliminated,” he said. “If you don’t eliminate Hamas, you accomplish nothing. This will happen again and again.” That, he added, was “the same thing that Israel wants.”
—
The post Andrew Cuomo said antisemitism was his ‘most important issue.’ What does his record say? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israeli and diaspora Jews live in different realities. The Israel Day parade proved it
If Sunday’s Israel Day Parade in New York City had been held in Israel, with the same Israeli leaders in attendance, there is no way that so many people would have shown up — unless it was to protest.
The fact that tens of thousands of American Jews seemed to have no problem marching alongside far-right Israeli ministers — including Bezalel Smotrich and Amichai Eliyahu — is a clear indication of the ever-widening gap between Israelis and diaspora Jews, whose support for Israel is, for the most part, conceptual. And that gap isn’t exclusively, or even primarily, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yes, there are many Israelis who oppose the messianic, anti-Palestinian rhetoric and policies pushed by Smotrich, Eliyahu and the rest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet — although not nearly enough, if you ask me. But the broad disdain for this government has more to do with domestic issues.
Israelis are furious over the ongoing Haredi draft exception; the government’s effective abandonment of citizens on the northern border; its refusal to take any accountability for the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack; a collapsing education system; a narrowing of religious freedoms; soaring murder rates in Arab communities; an epidemic of violence among Israeli teenagers; and police ineptitude and brutality.
From Israel, it seems clear that diaspora Jews have been unwilling to confront just how much damage Smotrich and his fellow coalition partners have done inside Israel.
Which is perhaps why Israel Day in New York City felt so disconnected from Israeli life.
The discourse around Israel’s delegation to the parade, at least on my algorithm, seemed to involve two contrasting beliefs: Either the ministers’ presence invalidated the legitimacy of the entire event and no one should have participated, or the parade was not a show of support for the Israeli government but a celebration of culture and heritage — and therefore these politicians should not be allowed to define it.
That debate largely took place around Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision not to attend the parade. To some pro-Israel Jews, his choice read as a rebuttal of Israel’s right to exist. In response, they spoke in the sweeping language of Jewish self-determination. This is nothing new: pro-Israel diaspora Jews often find themselves defending Israel against those who call for its destruction.
And yet, when it comes to the people who are actually destroying it, many are remarkably silent.
The full list of problematic statements and behaviors from members of Israel’s political the delegation is too long to detail in full. Among the most shocking items: Eliyahu, a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party, has publicly called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the strip was a possibility. His fellow party member, Negev and Galilee Development Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who also attended the parade, has led several provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in violation of Israel’s own clear norms regarding the holy Muslim site.
And Smotrich — whose attendance organizers said they had not been told about in advance — has doggedly worked to enable the de facto annexation of the West Bank.
Obviously, diaspora Jews have a different relationship with Israel than those of us who live here. We exist in completely different contexts, with different needs, fears and responsibilities. I do not believe our concerns need to be exactly identical. I am not telling anyone it was wrong to go to the parade.
But the question is what happens after.
How will the thousands who poured out to celebrate Israel in Manhattan on Sunday use their voices and energy to fight not just for Israel’s right to exist, but also for it to have a better future? After mainstream Jewish institutions have taken apart their floats, what resources will they allocate to protecting Israeli democracy, supporting the communities this government has abandoned and opposing the extremists dismantling the country from within?
After the parade, I kept seeing a brief clip of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer speaking from the dais. He ended his speech with the popular refrain “Am Yisrael Chai,” which he then translated into English.
Except he stumbled a bit over the words. Instead of saying, “The people of Israel live,” it came out as “the People Israel live.”
His flub inadvertently captured a deep truth. Israel, as a peoplehood, as an idea, is alive and kicking. Despite what some online ideologues want you to believe, our ancestral homeland is not going anywhere.
Nor do we need to fight quite as hard as we seem to think for the right to self-determination, seeing as we already have it and are not in any real danger of losing it.
But the people of Israel — the ones who actually live inside the country — are suffering. We are at the mercy of the most extreme government this country has ever seen.
We want to raise our children in security: real, long-lasting, diplomatically achieved security. We want to send them to decent schools in the morning and get them back in one piece at the end of the day. We want to live in a democracy, with a free press and an independent judiciary, where our daughters can read from the Torah if they want to and our sons can marry men if they want to.
The people of Israel do not need you to stand with Israel in a show of blanket solidarity.
We would much rather you stand with us, in active opposition to our government.
The post Israeli and diaspora Jews live in different realities. The Israel Day parade proved it appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
North Carolina Democrats reject Gaza genocide resolution following campaign by Jewish caucus
(JTA) — For weeks, Jewish Democrats in North Carolina worked to block the state’s Democratic Party from passing a resolution declaring Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.
On Saturday, they narrowly prevailed.
The measure, titled the “Genocide Accountability Resolution,” was struck down by members of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee with a vote of 163-130.
For Amy DeLoach, the first vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party Jewish Caucus, the victory marked a sign that Jewish Democrats still have a place in the party, even as debates over Israel have roiled Democratic politics across the country.
“Most Jews vote Democratically, and we were feeling abandoned, and now we feel like we have a home again,” said DeLoach, who also sits on the party’s international subcommittee.
The defeat of the resolution comes as support for Israel has dropped dramatically among Democrats, and the U.S.-Israel alliance has increasingly emerged as a third rail within the party.
While resolutions condemning the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and calling to halt arms sales to Israel have been blocked by the Democratic National Committee over the past year, last June, the North Carolina Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel.
Joel Wanger, the chief political officer of the Democratic Majority for Israel, welcomed the outcome of the genocide resolution in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Tuesday.
“This resolution would have divided Democrats at a time when we should be united in opposing Donald Trump, while doing nothing to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.
The resolution was introduced earlier this year by a member of the progressive, Arab and Muslim caucuses of the North Carolina Democratic Party. It advanced from the precinct level through county, district and state bodies before reaching the State Executive Committee for a final vote Saturday.
The resolution would have added language to the state party platform calling for the “prosecution” and “vetting” of individuals and entities in the United States who “may have participated in or enabled genocide.” The resolution also cited a United Nations Commission of Inquiry that concluded for the first time in September that Israel had committed a genocide in Gaza.
The resolution’s defeat Saturday followed an extensive campaign by the party’s Jewish Caucus to block its adoption.
In a May 27 letter to members of the executive committee, leaders of the Jewish Caucus urged them to reject the resolution, arguing that state parties “should not adopt contested international policy positions” and that its timing would hurt 2026 Democratic candidates and divide voters.
“Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Christian, and secular Democrats are united on affordability, public education, healthcare, voting rights, and reproductive freedom,” the letter said. “This resolution forces them to take sides on something most did not join the party to fight about.”
The letter cited “serious factual and legal problems” with the resolution and said Jewish Democrats would support a substitute “affirming NC Democrats’ commitment to ending civilian suffering in Gaza, supporting humanitarian aid, and opposing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and political violence in all forms.”
But the Jewish Caucus was not the only group within the party invested in the outcome of the vote.
Last month, the leaders of the Muslim, Arab, interfaith and progressive caucuses of the North Carolina Democratic Party issued its own a letter calling on members of the State Executive Committee to support the resolution in order to “affirm our party’s commitment to human rights and the protection of civilian life.”
“All too frequently, the burdensome narrative of genocide denial has been heard from those persons and organizations who have 1) either acquiesced to genocide or 2) feared the worst reprisals from those who have supported it,” the letter read. “This silence compromises the faith of many voters in our party.”
The letter, which cited a recent study that found 80% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel, was undersigned by the head of the state party’s Jewish Democrats, a non-Zionist Jewish subgroup within the Interfaith Caucus.
Mark Bochkis, the communications chair of the Jewish Democrats, told JTA that his group and the Jewish Caucus “fundamentally disagree about the divisiveness” of the resolution.
“We believe this is actually an issue that galvanizes the younger base of the party and other other important key voting blocks for the Democratic party,” Bochkis said. “We believe not speaking out on something like this is actually holding the party back.”
Paul McAllister, the chair of the Interfaith Caucus, told JTA that “we don’t want to see anything happen to any member of any community, Jewish or otherwise, but we do want accountability.”
While McAllister said that the language concerning “prosecution” in the resolution could have been “clarified,” he said the Jewish Caucus’ suggestion of an alternative to the resolution attracted little support because he felt it “waters down the need to hold a nation accountable for what it is doing to another people.”
“My major concern is that we have a faction within the party that wants justice for all people equally, Jews and Palestinians, and that there’s some in the party, namely members of the Jewish caucus, who do not comprehend how critical it is that we not only look after our own interest or our own group’s interest, but the interest of others, and this is the struggle,” McAllister said.
DeLoach said the scheduling of the vote last week on Shabbat had bothered members of the Jewish caucus. But she said they had “let that one go” to focus on fighting the resolution.
“We talk about that amongst ourselves, but we’re in a war right now,” she said. “We’re going to pick and choose the battles we fight.”
DeLoach said her group viewed the resolution as a political liability that could potentially force Democratic candidates in the state to either distance themselves from the party or embrace a “difficult divisive issue” on the campaign trail.
“No politician is going to want to run on a platform that includes this,” DeLoach said. “Platforms don’t win elections, and this is going to risk us losing an outrageously important election.”
DeLoach pointed to the campaigns of Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor who’s running for a Senate seat, and Anita Earls, who is running for reelection to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
“Most Democrats in North Carolina really are more concerned about their electric bill right now, and the cost of food,” DeLoach said. “As the vote shows, you know, nobody likes what’s going on in the Middle East. We don’t like what’s going on in the Middle East, but we know that’s not where our focus should be right now.”
Looking ahead, DeLoach said she hoped that the resolution’s defeat would serve as a warning against rhetoric she saw as “adding to a drumbeat of antisemitism that is so prevalent in the country.”
“There’s war crimes on both sides here, but it’s not a genocide, and y’all pounding this drum is making it more and more dangerous for Jews to live in this country,” DeLoach said. “We see the defeat of this resolution not only as a chance for us to start just electing Democrats, but as a hopeful pause, at least, if not a stop to this horrible rhetoric.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post North Carolina Democrats reject Gaza genocide resolution following campaign by Jewish caucus appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל געווינט אַ כּשרער רעסטאָראַן אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“
ייִט״אַ. — ווען מע האָט באַשאָטן דעם ישׂראלדיקן קוכער רז שבתי (ראַז שאַבטײַ) מיט קאָנפֿעטי האָט ער זיך ממש צעוויינט — און זײַנע מיטאַרבעטער האָבן אים וואַרעם אַרומגענומען.
מיט עטלעכע מינוט פֿריִער האָט מען געמאָלדן, אַז זײַן רעסטאָראַן אין מיאַמי, וואָס הייסט „מוטראַ“, איז געוואָרן דער ערשטער כּשרער רעסטאָראַן צו באַקומען אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“ — דעם גרעסטן כּבֿוד אין דער רעסטאָראַן־אינדוסטריע.
„דאָס איז אַ מאָמענט פֿון שׂימחה און פֿון שטאָלץ,“ האָט שאַבטײַ געזאָגט דער ייִדישער טעלעגראַפֿישער אַגענטור. „דעם שטערן באַקומט נישט בלויז ׳מוטראַ׳, נאָר דאָס גאַנצע ייִדישע פֿאָלק.“
שבתי, וואָס האָט שוין געאַרבעט אין אַ צאָל קיכן איבער ניו־יאָרק און ישׂראל, האָט געעפֿנט „מוטראַ“ אין פֿעברואַר 2025, געבנדיק דעם רעסטאָראַן אַ נאָמען נאָך זײַן ירושלים־געבוירענער באָבען, וועמעס קאָכן האָט אינספּירירט זײַן מעניו.
„איך האָב ליב צו באַצייכענען דאָס עסן אין דעם רעסטאָראַן ווי ׳ירושלימער מאכלים׳ אַנטקעגן ׳מיטל־מיזרחדיקע אָדער ישׂראלדיקע מאכלים׳ ווײַל די טעמען וואָס איך פּרוּוו ברענגען צום טיש זענען די טעמען וואָס זענען פֿאַרבונדן מיט מײַנע זכרונות און מיט מײַנע עקסקורסיעס אין מאַרק מיט דער באָבען,” האָט שבתי געזאָגט. „איך דאַרף זײַן געטרײַ די פּאָטראַוועס וואָס די באָבע האָט מיך געהאָדעוועט.“
אַ באַשרײַבונג פֿונעם רעסטאָראַן אויף דער „מישעלין“־וועבזײַט לויבט זײַנע „פּרעכטיקע בוריקעס אין ‘אַהאָ בלאַנקאָ’ (אַ קאַלטע זופּ געמאַכט פֿון מאַנדלען, קנאָבל און עסיק)“ און „שאָפֿנפֿלייש־קאָבאַב מיט גערייכערטן פּאַטלעזשאַן־קרעם און פּאָמידאָרן־בוימל“.
אַ דאַנק דער אָנערקענונג איז „מוטראַ“ געוואָרן איינער פֿון די אָנגעזעענסטע רעסטאָראַנען און באַטרעפֿט אַן אמתן ווענדפּונקט פֿאַר דער כּשרער קיך. פֿאַר שבתי, וואָס האָט אָנגעהויבן היטן כּשרות מיט מער ווי 10 יאָר צוריק, איז די פּרעמיע אַ קלאָרער באַווײַז, אַז קולינאַרע אויסגעצייכנטקייט קען בליִען אין די ראַמען פֿון דער כּשרער קיך.
„איך האָף אַז די דערגרייכונג וועט אינספּירירן אַנדערע כּשרע קוכערס,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו זען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To see the article in English, click here.
The post Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star appeared first on The Forward.