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How Mamdani became New York’s next mayor, with Jews divided between fierce opposition and fiery support
Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign was powered by youthful energy, a surge of new voters, and a promise of unconventional change, completed his yearlong journey with a decisive victory — to be elected the 111th mayor of New York City and the first Muslim to hold the office.
Mamdani’s victory, with just over 50% of the vote, was made possible by a splintered opposition. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after his bitter primary loss, hoped for a comeback by highlighting Mamdani’s harsh criticism of law enforcement and of Israel, rallying much of the city’s Jewish and older Democratic voters after Mayor Eric Adams withdrew.
But Cuomo’s lingering unpopularity — he resigned as governor in 2021 after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment, allegations he denied — combined with his campaign’s lackluster strategy and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa’s continued presence in the race, helped clear the path for Mamdani to prevail.
Voting turnout surged past two million, with early voting also at a record high.
Cuomo received about 41% of the vote, according to unofficial results, higher than the 36% he got in the June primary.
A campaign that redefined Jewish politics in New York
Democratic nominees for mayor typically win in November — with about two-thirds of New York voters registered as Democrats. But Mamdani was not the typical Democratic frontrunner in the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. An outspoken and unapologetic critic of Israel and defender of Palestinians, Mamdani’s stance on the conflict in Gaza resonated with a majority of voters, according to public opinion polls.
His campaign roiled the Jewish community more than any mayoral contest in recent memory. Rabbis across the country weighed in on Mamdani’s candidacy. More than 850 rabbis and cantors signed a letter opposing Mamdani and the “political normalization” of anti-Zionism. Other prominent rabbis, who refused to issue political endorsements, called out Mamdani’s rhetoric but cautioned against the potential consequences of an increasingly divided Jewish community.
Felice Schachter, an Upper West Side resident who has been involved with the Facebook group Mothers Against College Antisemitism, is planning her possible exit from the city after the votes are counted. “If God forbid, Mamdani wins, I’m leaving here. I’m moving. I don’t think it’s safe for Jews,” she said at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in midtown Manhattan at the watch party for Cuomo.
“I already spent time in Long Beach. I have a real estate broker. I got my pre-approval. I’m ready to go. My real estate broker knows tomorrow, I said, ‘If Mamdani wins, call Wednesday morning. I’m gonna have an offer in by December 1.’”
Mamdani is the first major party nominee to pledge to publicly back the movement to boycott Israel, which some in the pro-Israel community see as an assault on the legitimacy of the Jewish state’s existence. He also said he would not visit Israel, breaking with a tradition upheld by mayors since 1951 to show solidarity with Jewish constituents at home.
Mamdani promised to end the city’s half-century practice of investing millions in Israeli government debt securities and said he would dissolve a council Mayor Eric Adams created in May aimed at strengthening the U.S.-Israel economic ties. Recently, he said he would reassess a partnership between the Roosevelt Island campus of Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology because of the Israeli university’s ties to the IDF.
The war in Gaza was also a flashpoint in the campaign, with Mamdani tapping into the anger over the loss of life and the dire humanitarian crisis.
Mamdani attended some of the protests just after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and led a hunger strike outside the White House to call for a permanent ceasefire in November 2023. Though he condemned Hamas’ attack as a “horrific war crime,” he defended the campus protests, some of which included offensive displays or antisemitic statements, and he criticized the Adams administration for its crackdown on them.
Mamdani faced the most scrutiny for refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” for saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and for a newly surfaced 2023 video in which he said that the New York Police Department’s boots are “laced by the IDF.”
He also clashed with the Anti-Defamation League, saying the organization does not speak for New York Jews’ concerns.
Mamdani enjoyed support among progressive and younger Jews who see his criticism of Israel as compatible with Jewish values of justice. He was also boosted by local Jewish elected officials such as Ruth Messinger and embraced by prominent liberal rabbis.
A letter signed by more than 250 rabbis and cantors stated, “we recognize that candidate Zohran Mamdani’s support for Palestinian self-determination stems not from hate, but from his deep moral convictions.” It also defended attacks against his Muslim identity, arguing, “Jewish safety cannot be built on Muslim vulnerability, nor can we combat hate against our community while turning away from hate against our neighbors.”
Mamdani’s extended olive branch and coalition
Despite the backlash and the opposition, the son of Ugandan and Indian immigrants embarked on an unprecedented outreach effort to a broad spectrum of Jewish New Yorkers across the city’s five boroughs, even finding allies in segments of the Hasidic community.
He attended High Holiday services at Kolot Chaiyeinu and the Lab/Shul, he addressed members of Congregation Beth Elohim for a community conversation earlier this month, and visited Hasidic leaders in South Williamsburg during Sukkot. On the second anniversary of Oct. 7, he appeared at an Israelis for Peace vigil alongside hostage families. Mamdani also recently published an open letter in Hasidic Yiddish, outlining his plans to combat antisemitism and advance his affordability agenda, and gave an interview to a popular Yiddish magazine, Der Moment.
In public appearances, he highlighted conversations he had with Jewish New Yorkers, in which he listened to their concerns and expressed solidarity with their struggle amid rising antisemitism.
Mamdani reassured the community that he would increase police protection outside houses of worship and Jewish institutions and invest in hate crime prevention programs. He also vowed to retain police commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, and said he would use a city curriculum in public schools that teaches about Jewish Americans, even as it contradicts his own position on Israel. He also assured liberal Zionists that support for Israel would not be a litmus test for serving in his administration.
The road ahead
In his primary victory speech, Mamdani promised, if elected, to govern for every New Yorker, “including Jewish New Yorkers,” and those who didn’t vote for him. He’s expected to echo that sentiment in a victory speech at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater.
Building his administration and governing will test whether the promise of inclusion can overcome the scars of the campaign.
Jewish leaders will be closely monitoring to see how Mamdani reacts to the first antisemitic incident under his watch and whether he will move to implement his boycott and divestment agenda across city agencies.
There are also open questions about whether activists critical of Israel and with troubling pasts will fill senior roles at City Hall, and who will have a seat at the table when critical issues impacting the community are discussed.
Business and law enforcement leaders are bracing for his proposals to redirect police funding toward housing and mental-health programs and are unsure how his budget priorities will impact the economy.
A check on the mayor
Even as he takes office with a clear mandate, Mamdani faces a complex political landscape filled with powerful Democrats who did not endorse him and could act as a check on his more controversial ambitions in a city of 8.5 million with deep Jewish roots and global connections.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both of whom pointedly stayed neutral in the mayoral race, could be persuaded to speak out if Mamdani’s policies threaten to alienate the city from federal partners or jeopardize cooperation with Israel.
Rep. Dan Goldman, Councilwoman Julie Menin — who is running to become City Council Speaker in January — and former Comptroller Scott Stringer, all of whom withheld their support, could be part of an influential bloc of Jewish voices demanding accountability and moderation from City Hall.
Comptroller-elect Mark Levine, a key ally who campaigned with Mamdani but has publicly vowed to reinvest in Israel Bonds and use his platform to speak out for Israel, could become both a bridge and a brake on the administration. If Levine follows through on his promises and the mayor pursues divestment, a public clash between the two men could be one of the defining political dramas of the new administration.
For President Donald Trump, who endorsed Cuomo at the last minute, and New York Republicans, Mamdani’s win was expected to be a political gift. GOP officials intend to highlight the election as proof that Democrats have lost the center and use it to rally Jewish voters in next year’s gubernatorial race against incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Leadership, who earned plaudits in the pro-Israel community after confronting the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania over campus antisemitism, is expected to launch her campaign for governor in the near future.
Hannah Feuer contributed reporting.
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Another Graham Platner potential replacement now says Israel committed genocide in Gaza
(JTA) — Graham Platner concluded his Senate bid on a pro-Palestinian note on Friday, in the last lines of a letter to Maine’s secretary of state formally withdrawing his candidacy.
“F*ck ICE. Free Palestine. Up the Hearts,” Platner wrote before signing off with the valediction, “Solidarity forever.”
The secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, is among the candidates seeking to replace Platner on the ballot, and she soon adopted his stance on Israel. Before becoming secretary of state, Bellows was the executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine.
Asked about Platner’s letter on CNN’s “The Source” on Friday, Bellows said she agreed with Platner’s claim that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. “Yes. Israel — the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza right now,” Bellows said. “And we should not be sending any taxpayer funds to be conducting that harm.”
Bellows did not immediately respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment on Monday.
Platner, a Democrat, posted the letter nearly two days after announcing that he would leave the race, following sexual assault allegations that caused even his most devoted allies to drop their support. It was a remarkable fall for an oyster fisherman and populist who emerged out of political obscurity to command such a lead that Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, suspended her own campaign in April.
In both the speech his announcing his withdrawal and the letter, Platner has painted his exit as the result of a conspiracy against him and the progressive movement, rather than a consequence of accruing controversies that undercut his ability to win in November.
“All we were asking for was healthcare, was to end the genocide, to use our taxpayer dollars at home to uplift our communities instead of waging war overseas,” Platner said in a Facebook address announcing his exit, two days before sending the formal letter.
Platner’s successor will be selected during a nominating convention on July 25. Since his exit, candidates vying to replace him have staked out their own stances on Israel, with others besides Bellows saying publicly for the first time that they believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Israel and its supporters reject the claim, which a recent poll found that half of Democrats believe.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Rep. Ro Khanna says armed settlers detained him in the West Bank; IDF disputes account
(JTA) — California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid, says he was detained last week by armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank last week — and that Israeli soldiers who arrived “took the settlers’ side.”
The IDF disputed that characterization. The military said in a statement that it received a report of Israeli civilians unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the media near the Palestinian West Bank hamlet of Khirbet Zanuta, and that troops dispatched to the scene “quickly dispersed the Israeli civilians” and reopened the road. Its soldiers, the IDF said, did not take part in blocking the road. The military also said Khanna did not coordinate his visit with the IDF.
The incident took place Wednesday during Khanna’s to the West Bank and broke into public view over the weekend, as Khanna made a number of allegations against the Israeli military while sharing his account.
Khanna’s description of the length of his delay has varied, from about 20 minutes to 90 minutes. Khanna has also claimed the Israeli government and the U.S. Embassy were notified of his trip.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, disputed that on Sunday, saying Khanna’s office had asked only about visas and declined the embassy’s request to coordinate the trip. Leiter also said Khanna’s office had not responded to an offer of meetings with survivors of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
The incident is the latest flashpoint in mounting criticism of Israel within the Democratic Party, where Khanna is a leader of the pro-Palestinian left flank.
Khanna has repeatedly pointed out that the settlers carried American-made M4 rifles, which he described as “machine guns.” Khanna has called for a ban on all U.S. weapons sales to Israel, including defensive Iron Dome munitions.
In the wake of Oct. 7, Khanna has evolved from a staunchly pro-Israel Democrat into one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress. He went from taking money from the liberal J Street and voting to fund Israel’s Iron Dome in 2021 to securing the backing of Track AIPAC, a group that monitors donations from pro-Israel organizations and issues endorsements and “anti-endorsements” of candidates.
Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is “a country of laws” that prosecutes lawbreakers, and attributed settler violence in the West Bank to roughly 150 “juvenile delinquents” he described as unrepresentative of a mostly law-abiding settler community. He said he does not want “vigilantes of any kind.”
Appearing after him on the same broadcast, Khanna rejected the Israeli account. “The IDF is lying,” he said, calling for an investigation of the four soldiers.
“He said Israel is a country of law and order,” Khanna said about Netanyahu. “Well, let me be very specific. The prime minister needs to open an investigation on these violent settlers who are connected to Yinon Levi, who has destroyed Zanuta’s village and is a known person who has killed Palestinians.”
Levi was indicted last year following the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian activist, Awadh Hathaleen, in a village neighboring Kirbeit Zanuta.
Khanna is not the first American to have been detained in the West Bank. In March, CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and his crew were detained for about two hours by Israeli reservists while reporting in the northern West Bank. In that case, in which the crew recorded a soldier assaulting a detainee and making inflammatory comments about Jewish control of the disputed region, the Israeli military suspended the battalion involved and apologized to CNN, with its chief of staff calling the episode a “grave ethical incident.”
In Khanna’s case, no arrests have been made — though the IDF said in its statement that the identity of at least one armed individual is under review.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Israel’s elections are set for Oct. 27, triggering mad dash for scarce plane tickets for Israelis abroad
(JTA) — After several months in which it seemed possible that elections would be called earlier, Israel now has a date for its voters to head to the polls to pick a new government.
The Knesset House Committee on Sunday affirmed an election date of Oct. 27, the latest allowed under law, following months of political maneuvering to force an early collapse of the government by both the opposition and the governing coalition.
The determination puts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on track to be the first to complete a full term in more than half a century, with the Knesset set to disperse on July 17.
The timeline means that the intense final weeks of campaigning will overlap with the three-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that is looming large over the race, particularly for Netanyahu, who was in charge at the time.
It also means that Israelis living abroad — who number more than ever before — now know when they must be in Israel if they wish to vote. Unusually, Israeli law does not allow for absentee voting except in a narrow number of situations, meaning that almost anyone with an Israeli passport who lives outside of Israel must travel back to cast a ballot.
In past elections, Israelis abroad have faced tough decisions about whether to fly home to vote — most recently in 2022, when Israel had a fifth round of elections in four years.
This time around, there are even greater pressures. A record number of Israelis have moved abroad in recent years, with 70,000 leaving in 2025 alone and causing Israel to experience an unusual net migration loss. Flights, meanwhile, are historically expensive, owing to cancellations by foreign carriers amid war-induced uncertainty. At the same time, the stakes of the election are high, with analysts and politicians of all ideologies warning that Israel’s democracy is at an inflection point.
Netanyahu and his supporters say reelecting him is the only way to keep Israelis and Jews around the world safe, while a wide range of opposition parties say only they can safeguard the country’s future, For now polls suggest that the opposition has a majority of voters’ support — though it’s not clear which bloc will have the necessary votes to form a government and, within the opposition bloc, which parties will command
Recent polls have shown a new party formed by Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief whose son was killed during the Gaza war, leading among the opposition and rivaling Netanyahu’s own Likud party in its share of voters. A joint party led by the former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid also has support from significant numbers of voters, as does a left-wing party led by the retired army general Yair Golan. Parties will hold primary elections in the coming weeks.
Some initiatives are already underway to help Israelis abroad get home for the election. The AID Coalition is collecting information from interested Israelis with the goal of potentially chartering flights to boost the number of people who can make the trip — though each voter will bear his or her full costs.
“Don’t let distance silence your voice,” the group tweeted on Sunday, after the election date was announced.
Meanwhile, Israeli academics have set a slew of conferences for the days before the election, across dozens of fields. Israeli Science and Academia Week says it “seeks to leverage the arrival of thousands of Israeli researchers from abroad to Israel during the Knesset election period to create professional meetings, encourage research collaborations, reveal new academic opportunities, and strengthen the international status of Israeli academia.” It may also have the effect of enabling Israeli academics working abroad to get their institutions to subsidize their travel and permit them leave during the school year.
Israelis posting to social media are already noting a spike in ticket prices just ahead of Oct. 27. But many are also sharing screenshots of their ticket receipts that show the number of days until their trips — and the election.
“My entire feed is full of screenshots of flight tickets to Israel for election day. People spending money, taking time off, and coming specifically just to vote,” tweeted Avi Edelson, an anti-government activist. (His LinkedIn account identifies him as working at El Al, Israel’s main airline.) “It reminds me how much people care about the future of this country.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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