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We’re Jews in Zohran Mamdani’s neighborhood. You don’t want NYC to be like this.
The excitement in the air is palpable as our neighborhood turns out for Zohran Mamdani. In many ways, we know him well: he’s been our assemblyman for the last four years. In any other world, we would be excited by the possibility of a man like Zohran — an eloquent speaker, attuned to the affordability crisis, relatable despite his family wealth, a first-name figure in the community — rising up to challenge the establishment.
But that is not our portion. As Jews of District 36, Zohran’s Assembly district, we live in a world where his tenure and campaign have fragmented our community, fractured our trust in each other, and upended our sense of belonging and safety. We are left-wing Jews, right-wing Jews, and out-of-the-box Jews who want nothing more than to focus on the kinds of policy questions that affect our material conditions as New Yorkers.
But our experience in our neighborhood has torn us away from everyday concerns like making the rent and paying for groceries. That’s because the vision that Zohran said drew him to the Democratic Socialists of America five years ago — a stance on Palestine that calls for the isolation of Zionists, rejects “normalization” or relationships between anti-Zionists and supporters of Israel, and sanctions armed violence — has shaped what it’s like to live here since Oct. 7, 2023.
We go to different synagogues, work in different fields, and have different Jewish backgrounds. But when we came together as friends and neighbors in a local WhatsApp group for Astoria Jews in the aftermath of Oct. 7, we learned we had a common experience — one that we unfortunately shared with others in our neighborhood’s diverse Jewish community. Here, with the collective input of local Jews — religious and irreligious, queer and traditional, Mizrahi, Sephardi and Ashkenazi — we explain why our objections to a Mayor Mamdani are rooted not in abstract fear or deep-seated bias, but the product of daily life in a community shaped by Zohran’s public political choices.
On Oct. 8, 2023, just hours after the Hamas attack in Israel, Mamdani opted for a political statement of blame, rather than words of comfort and care so desperately needed by his own constituents. Since then, we’ve seen graffiti reading “Long Live Hamas,” “Sinwar Lives,” “Kill Yourself Zionist,” and Hamas red triangles spray-painted on residential buildings and businesses. Flyers attacking “Zionist capital” were distributed during a local rezoning debate, and people waving Hamas flags have rallied in our streets.
At a holiday block party, a mother was called a “genocidal killer” in front of her preschool-aged children; another was called a “bitch” by a man miming throat-slitting while she scraped graffiti from a lamp post. At a neighborhood bar’s karaoke night, a man sang “Deutschland über alles” while giving a Nazi salute. Posters and stickers with keffiyehs and machine guns have regularly appeared near playgrounds and public spaces.
Our teens have skipped school on cultural appreciation days to avoid being ostracized, and our hearts have shattered as our children reassure us of their safety with phrases like “don’t worry, no one knows I’m Jewish.” Signs that welcome the stranger, the immigrant — a longstanding Jewish value immortalized in verse by the Jewish-American poet Emma Lazarus — now live alongside swastikas and hate-speech on lampposts and shop windows across the district.
What we haven’t seen is any meaningful response to just how normal this has become. When a local business hung a massive, blinking “Fuck Israel” sign alongside a portrait of Hitler, we spoke up at our community board meeting in front of a silent Mamdani representative, to no response. We have filed complaints, we’ve removed stickers, we’ve spray-painted over violent imagery — and we’ve been at it alone. This is not the New York we want to live in, and this is not the New York of equality, safety and inclusivity that Zohran is promising.
In a city as diverse as New York, where nearly 40% of residents are immigrants and many more are part of transnational or multicultural communities, Jewish New Yorkers are not unique in carrying layered identities. The 80% of American Jews that consider Israel to be an “essential or important component” of their identity, are mirrored by Indian, Korean and Dominican Americans who feel the same connection to their homeland. What is unique, and unacceptable, is being sent the message that this connection is somehow at odds with our identity as New Yorkers.
This election is not a referendum on Israel or the place of Jews in New York City. It is, more pointedly, a reflection of a referendum that has already taken place; one that shaped the culture in which Zohran was raised as a cosmopolitan scion of the academic and cultural elite, with access to some of the best resources this city has to offer.
These resources — private grammar schools, specialized high schools, wealthy neighborhoods, the glitter- and literati — hold hints of old-boys-club antisemitism filtered through the lens of new-age anti-Zionism. Left unquestioned, they lay the foundation for an unrecognizable New York. When 54% of all hate crimes last year targeted Jews, we would argue we are already halfway there.
When we heard Zohran describe the fear of his Muslim family members in the aftermath of 9/11, we wondered why he can’t see the fear of most Jewish New Yorkers today.
We took notice when he said, as he was reported as saying in Brooklyn, that he would be here for us “when the mezuzah falls.” We want to be clear: a mezuzah doesn’t fall. A mezuzah is taken down discreetly while the streets echo with calls to globalize the intifada. It is kissed one last time, while the memory of being called a genocide lover in front of your children infuses the parchment. It is wrapped and placed in a box alongside other whispering mementos from grandparents who survived Iraq, Morocco, Poland, France, Uzbekistan, as we wonder if its hum has gotten loud enough for us to listen and know that the time to leave has come once more.
Our pain and fears are real and valid; the frustrations on all sides of the Jewish spectrum come from a shared concern for the wellbeing of our city and all of humanity. In our synagogues, alongside the prayer for Israel, we say the prayer for our country and wish wisdom upon its leaders, just as JHews have wished upon the leaders of every Diaspora nation where we have lived.
Our history has taken us, the Jewish people, through many lands, from our origins as a people called Israel in the Levant through thousands of years of exile, transfer and return. Today, just over a million of us — still that same people — are proud to call New York City home, and we want to keep calling this city home. We have given deeply to this place, pouring in whatever we had in every generation: labor, culture, protest, philanthropy, policy, innovation. So, too, have we been nourished by this city.
We love New York. We want to stay, not in silence, not on sufferance, but fully and without fear. We wonder if that is possible in a city led by Zohran Mamdani.
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The post We’re Jews in Zohran Mamdani’s neighborhood. You don’t want NYC to be like this. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon has said about Israel and Gaza
Angie Nixon is not the first progressive and outspoken critic of Israel to win a major-party nomination for statewide office. But her upset victory in Florida’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate makes her the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to do so.
The milestone comes after a string of victories for DSA-backed insurgents in local and congressional races from New York and New Jersey to Pennsylvania and Colorado since 2025, with criticism of Israel and the war in Gaza being central issues in many of their campaigns.
Nixon did not make Israel the centerpiece of her Senate campaign, which focused heavily on affordability, health care and other economic issues. But on Israel and Gaza, her record puts her broadly in line with the DSA’s approach.
Appearing on Morning Joe the morning after her victory, Nixon called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a war criminal who needs to answer to his crimes” and said she opposed sending Israel U.S. money or weapons “at this moment.”
Nixon will face Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody in November. Moody, who was appointed to the Senate after Marco Rubio became secretary of state, is considered a favorite in a state that shifted toward Republicans in recent elections. A University of North Florida poll released in July showed Moody leading Nixon 50% to 42%.
A state representative from Jacksonville, Nixon said after her victory that her formal ties to the DSA are new. In an interview with The Contrarian on Wednesday, she said she had “just recently joined the DSA because I was asked.”
The affiliation connects Nixon to a national organization that has made Palestinian advocacy a major part of its political identity. The DSA describes Palestinian liberation as an “essential part” of its broader socialist struggle. Its national co-chair, Megan Romer, recently said the group’s goal is “a free Palestine with a capital in Jerusalem,” which she acknowledged could be understood as support for a one-state solution.
The organization has at times enforced that position aggressively even with its own elected officials. In 2021, DSA members debated expelling then-U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a one-term New York Democrat, after he traveled to Israel with J Street, the liberal pro-Israel advocacy group, met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and voted for funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. The national organization ultimately decided against expelling him, while publicly criticizing his actions.
What Nixon has said on Israel and the Palestinians
Long before her upset Senate victory and DSA affiliation, Nixon had become one of the most outspoken critics of Israel in the Florida Legislature.
In November 2023, weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, Nixon introduced a resolution calling on the Biden administration to push for “an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”
The resolution sparked a heated and highly emotional debate in the Florida House, according to the Florida Phoenix. Nixon was largely isolated, with Republicans and members of her own party speaking against the measure and turning their backs on her. Nixon cried as she defended the resolution.
“Many of my colleagues have stated that folks are fearful of another massacre occurring to the Jewish people,” Nixon said. “Well, guess what? A massacre is occurring now.”
The Florida House ultimately rejected it 104-2.
In May 2024, Nixon joined pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of North Florida, telling students she was “in awe” of their generation. She later said she wanted the protesters to know that elected officials supported them and that they were “on the right side of history.”
In the campaign for Senate, her official foreign-policy platform called for ending unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, which she said had “fueled a genocide in Palestine.” She advocated for ending U.S. support for Israeli settlements and creating a path to Palestinian self-determination through the United Nations Security Council.
Jewish Insider reported that Rick Stark, chair of the Florida Democratic Jewish Caucus, said that during a Zoom meeting with the group, Nixon did not give a clear answer when asked whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He also said Nixon was unfamiliar with the meaning of the slogan “from the river to the sea,” but told participants that Palestinian friends had said it was not a call for Israel’s destruction.
Last month, Nixon said in an interview with WMNF Radio that she would have voted for a House amendment to end the $3.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel. The amendment, introduced by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a fierce critic of Israel who lost his Republican primary in May, received support from 103 of 212 House Democrats.
In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program Wednesday, the hosts asked Nixon what she would tell Jewish voters concerned about her position on the conflict. “We need to make sure that we’re putting Americans first before we go ahead and start sending money or military aid to any country outside of the U.S.,” Nixon said.
Pressed specifically on whether that meant cutting off all military aid to Israel, Nixon said: “At this time, I believe what’s happening over in Israel and in Palestine is not good for Israelis or Palestinians. And I do not support sending any money or any weapons to Israel at this moment.”
The post What Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon has said about Israel and Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
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Manhattan Central Synagogue attacker faces federal hate crime charges
(JTA) — The man accused of disrupting Shabbat services at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue last week now faces federal hate crimes charges in addition to the state ones leveled against him immediately after the attack.
“These charges serve as notice that the Department of Justice will intervene to protect the public in the face of antisemitic and racially motivated attacks,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement on Tuesday.
Larry Montes, 46, of the Bronx, New York, was charged with two counts of committing hate crimes, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and one count of damage to religious property resulting in bodily injury, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
During the attack last Friday at the Reform synagogue in Manhattan, Montes, who was sitting near the front of the sanctuary, allegedly stood up nine minutes into the service and began shouting, “You know who the f–ck I am.”
Montes then approached the stage of the synagogue and knocked over two ceremonial silver candle sticks, causing them to be damaged, according to the complaint filed by an FBI agent investigating the case.
As the synagogue’s head of security attempted to remove Montes from the sanctuary, he then said “F–ck you people” and “I don’t f–ck with you people” before punching a 63-year-old congregant in the face and knocking her to the ground.
While Montes was handcuffed and arrested in the lobby of the synagogue, he then allegedly told a security guard “F–ck you [n-word]” and headbutted him near his left eye socket.
During his subsequent interview with NYPD officers following his arrest, he allegedly told officers, “F–ck the Jews. … It’s racial” and “I will never affiliate with no filthy f–cking synagogues, either here or in fucking Israel.” Montes allegedly told officers that he had felt disrespected at the service, so he “got up, start[ed] some sh–t, [and] smacked somebody around.”
When asked by NYPD officers why he felt disrespected at the service, Montes allegedly replied, “it’s all a racial thing” and that it was “all religious motivated.” Montes also stated during his post-arrest interview that he identified as Jewish, according to the complaint. Montes’ aunt previously told the New York Post that he was “mentally traumatized because of his desire to belong to that religion [Judaism].”
Montes has been in custody since his arrest immediately after Friday’s attack. He was arraigned that same night and is due in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday.
The federal charges come as the attack has sparked widespread condemnation from New York leaders, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and spurred a Jewish security watchdog group to call on the NYPD to place more officers in hotspots for potential hate crimes.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Manhattan Central Synagogue attacker faces federal hate crime charges appeared first on The Forward.
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He’s campaigning to regulate Texas oil and gas. Why is he linking his Jewish opponent to the Bolshevik Revolution?
A Texas race that would normally focus on oil wells, pipelines and energy policy has spilled into accusations of antisemitism.
In a fundraising email last month, Bo French, the Republican nominee for the powerful Texas Railroad Commission, circulated an AI-generated image of Jon Rosenthal, his Jewish Democratic opponent, smiling inside the room where Russia’s Romanov royal family was killed after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Rosenthal has “much in common with the Marxist revolutionaries who brutally executed the Romanov family,” the email reads. “My opponent has spent his time in office mocking Christianity, the Virgin Birth, and Christian Communion, while voting against religious liberty and for the spread of Islam.”
The text “Radical Rosenthal” with a blood-red outline overlays the black-and-white image.
“I do see it as antisemitic,” Rosenthal, the only Jewish member of the Texas statehouse, told the Forward. “Look at the history of the Bolsheviks and how the Jews were scapegoated. To invoke that here and now is disturbing.”
French did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
The message echoes the antisemitic conspiracy theory “Judeo-Bolshevism” that Jews created or controlled communism to undermine Western society. It became central to the Nazi propaganda used as a justification for violence against Jews. The fundraising email was first reported by Texas Monthly magazine.
“This is something that Jews have faced in the arena forever,” said Arthur Pronin, the Jewish president of the Meyerland Area Democrats Club in Houston. “This sort of thing that ‘They’re not one of us. They’re communists. They don’t have allegiance to the values of this country.’ It has a very specific resonance.”
Rosenthal, 63, was raised as a Reform Jew in an interfaith family, with a Jewish father and Christian mother. When Rosenthal was 14, he spent a year in Israel attending school in Hebrew and learning to speak the language while his father taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He later became a mechanical engineer and worked in the oil and gas industry for 30 years before entering politics in 2017. In 2018, Rosenthal was elected to the state legislature, taking his oath of office on a Torah he received as a bar mitzvah gift.
In an interview with the Forward last year, Rosenthal said that he has at times faced antisemitic comments from members in the state legislature, including stereotypical remarks about Jews and money.
“Antisemitism is alive and well in Texas,” Rosenthal told the Forward.
Last year, he led opposition to a bill requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in May 2025.
To underscore what he considered hypocrisy of self-identified Christian nationalists who supported the legislation, Rosenthal introduced an amendment to require the display of both the Jewish and Roman Catholic versions of the Ten Commandments, a measure that failed.
Rosenthal ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Railroad Commissioner. He is seeking to become the first Democrat in more than three decades to win a seat on the three-member commission, created in 1891, that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. (Despite its name, the Railroad Commission stopped regulating railroads in 2005.) Members are elected to serve six-year terms.
Rosenthal, who previously flipped his district in northwest Houston from red to blue, is making a case that his victory would “rebuke the politics of hate.”
A recent poll of 1,200 likely voters, with a reported margin of error of plus or minus 2.8%, showed French with a slim three-point lead over Rosenthal. Rosenthal could benefit from the competitive U.S. Senate race, as other polls show Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton locked in a dead heat.
French’s past antisemitism accusations
It’s not the first time French, who previously served as a GOP leader in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has been accused of antisemitism. Last June, he posted a social media poll asking “Who is a bigger threat to America?” and gave two options: “Jews” or “Muslims.”
After backlash, French deleted the poll and apologized, writing that “Some people clearly misunderstood the intent.” Ignoring calls to resign from high-ranking Texas Republicans, he announced in November 2025 that he was stepping down to run for railroad commissioner.
He narrowly won the Republican primary in May against the incumbent railroad commissioner, Jim Wright, with 50.5% of the vote.
Rather than focus solely on traditional regulatory issues in his campaign, French has infused culture war themes. His campaign website says he will end “the influence of radical Islam and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) in Texas oil” and strengthen the railroad commission’s “partnership with our allies like Israel.” In March, French called on the U.S. to deport 100 million people and for Texas Republicans to more openly condemn Islam.
“To be fair, he seems to be a pretty equal opportunity hater,” Rosenthal told the Forward. “He says antisemitic stuff, but he’s also Islamophobic and anti-immigrant.”
The state’s top Republicans — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows — had all endorsed Wright in the primary. Now, all three are backing French.
Others won’t embrace French but see his victory as inevitable. Fred Zeidman, a Houston-based Jewish Republican donor who supported French’s rival in the primary, said the controversial campaign talking points are unrelated to the commission’s work on regulating gas and oil.
“I mean, I’m dead set against all that, and that’s why I worked against him,” said Zeidman, who serves as chairman of the board of Petroflow Energy, an independent oil and gas production and consulting firm. “Would I vote for him? Probably not. But he’s going to win. He might be effective at what he’s doing.”
The GOP support for French alarms Jewish Texans like Pronin, who said the candidate’s social media poll alone should have disqualified him.
The July fundraising email “should be roundly condemned by the Democratic Party, but also by Republicans,” Pronin said. “They’ve had a history of saying French is not acceptable. So why is it acceptable now?”
The post He’s campaigning to regulate Texas oil and gas. Why is he linking his Jewish opponent to the Bolshevik Revolution? appeared first on The Forward.
