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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.
The post How Mamdani became New York’s next mayor, with Jews divided between fierce opposition and fiery support appeared first on The Forward.
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EU-Funded NGO Backed Online Platform Targeting Jewish Businesses in Catalonia
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate outside the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 18. Photo: Reuters/Guillermo Yllanes Gonzalez
The controversial online platform mapping Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, was promoted by an EU-funded non-governmental organization.
On Tuesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released new information showing that Engineers Without Borders – Catalonia (ESF-C) and Universities with Palestine (UAP) jointly promoted the BarcelonaZ project on social media, identifying themselves as its primary backers.
First reported by the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.
As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marked over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”
“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website stated.
According to NGO Monitor’s newly released report, ESF-C is a European Union–funded NGO running a Youth Internship Program subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia, with 40 percent co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus — the EU’s primary program for funding employment, education, and social initiatives.
The EU Financial Transparency System shows that ESF‑C partnered on two EU grants worth about $2.8 million from 2019 to 2023 and received at least $164,000 in funding.
Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the BarcelonaZ initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.
“The mapping and boycotting of Jewish businesses in Catalonia is an echo of some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Director of European Affairs, Shannon Seban, said in a statement.
“The organizers of this initiative put a target on the backs of Spanish Jews, at a time when Jews are being hunted across the globe, as seen so horrifically in Australia just three weeks ago,” she said, referring to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others.
“Clear incitement to violence of this nature must not be platformed or tolerated by internet companies or government authorities,” Seban continued.
On its website, ESF-C describes its mission as promoting “a fair international society, which does not exclude anyone,” and highlights its commitment to “non-denominationalism and non-partisanship.” Yet, the NGO’s 2024 annual report also asserts that it “cannot ignore the Palestinian resistance, a clear expression of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples.”
In a social media post, the NGO also accused Israel of “genocide” during its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, describing its platform as “a resource designed to inform, raise awareness, and mobilize the educational and student community in Catalonia.”
“The attacks that began on Oct. 7 have involved water and electricity cuts, the boycott of essential water infrastructure, and the contamination of Palestinian water sources,” ESF-C wrote in an Instagram post, without mentioning the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“The violation of these basic rights is a key weapon used by the State of Israel to perpetuate genocide,” the statement read.
NGO Monitor also revealed that UAP is a network of Catalan faculty- and student-led anti-Israel organizations that co-sponsored the BarcelonaZ project.
Last year, UAP organized a “People’s Court” at Complutense University of Madrid on what it called the “Palestinian genocide,” with attendance from several terror-linked NGOs and individuals, including Samidoun, Masar Badil, Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani, NGO Monitor reported.
Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.
Earlier this week, GoGoCarto announced it had removed the BarcelonaZ project from its website after local groups denounced the initiative as blatantly antisemitic and dangerous.
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Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
(JTA) — In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz decried what he said was a “new enemy” rising within American politics: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“We are used to enemies from outside. We fight terror tunnels of Hamas. We fight the ballistic missiles of Iran. But today I look at the West, our greatest ally, and I see a new enemy rising from within,” said Illouz, who is originally from Canada originally, in an English address. “I am speaking of a poison being sold to the American people as patriotism. I’m speaking of the intellectual vandalism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.”
Illouz’s comments come as the Republican party has been roiled in recent months by debates over the mainstreaming of antisemitic influencers within the GOP.
טאקר קרלסון וקנדיס אוונס הם לא פטריוטים – הם ונדלים אינטלקטואלים. הם טוענים שהם נלחמים בשמאל הקיצוני, אבל הם בדיוק אותו דבר: אותה שנאה למערב, אותו רלטיביזם מוסרי ואותו ניסיון להחריב את המורשת שלנו ואת המערב. pic.twitter.com/ygN70WtGEw
— דן אילוז – Dan Illouz (@dillouz) January 7, 2026
In October, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson hosted far-right antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes on his platform, igniting outrage from Jewish conservatives who warned of the growing reach of antisemitic voices.
Owens has long made antisemitic rhetoric a hallmark of her YouTube channel, which has 5.7 million subscribers. A recent analysis of her content by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that three-quarters of her videos that mentioned Jews were antisemitic.
“They claim to fight the woke left. They are no different than the woke left,” said Illouz. “The radical left tears down the statues of Thomas Jefferson, Tucker Carlson tears down the legacy of Winston Churchill. The radical left says Western civilization is evil, Candace Owens says the roots of our faith are demonic. It is the same sickness.”
Carlson and Owens are among the right-wing influencers who have made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of their output, at a time when support for Israel is declining among conservatives, particularly younger conservatives.
In November, Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister, echoed Illouz’s concerns in an interview with the New York Post, telling the outlet that he was “far more concerned about antisemitism on the right than on the left.” The comments were notable because Chikli is himself a right-wing, anti-“woke” warrior who, in a first for Israel, has stoked relationships with far-right European parties that in some cases have ties to the Nazis.
“One of the worst moments was when a popular conservative broadcaster called one of the most vile Holocaust deniers in America ‘one of the most honest historians.’ That legitimizes hate — it normalizes it,” Chikli told the New York Post, appearing to refer to Carlson’s past praise of the Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper.
Chikli also warned against the rising influence of Fuentes and Cooper among young Americans.
“Antisemitism has become fashionable for Gen Z,” Chikli continued. “They listen to podcasts, not professors. When people like Nick Fuentes or Darryl Cooper are treated as thought leaders, that’s dangerous. These are neo-Nazis.”
The Times of Israel asked Illouz whether he was worried about appearing to interfere with American politics. “Defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering,” he said. “I am in touch with many pro-Israel conservatives who know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America as much as to Israel.”
Top GOP officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have largely dismissed calls from Jewish conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, and others to draw a line against antisemitic influencers.
“Do you think you are the first to try to delegitimize the Jewish people? We are the people of eternity,” said Illouz toward the conclusion of his address, adding that “we will be here long after your YouTube channels are forgotten dust.”
The post Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens appeared first on The Forward.
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Texas Joins Legal Action Against American Muslims for Palestine as Move to ‘Counter Hamas Terrorism’
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Cheney Orr
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday announced the state would join Virginia and Iowa in the filing of a legal brief against the nonprofit activist group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and other organizations which he characterized as “radical” in order “to combat Hamas terrorism.”
“Radical Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas must be decimated and dismantled, and that includes their domestic supporting branches,” Paxton posted on the social media platform X.
“Terrorism relies on complex networks and intermediaries, and the law must be enforced against those who knowingly provide material support,” Texas’s top legal officer added in a statement. “My office will continue to defend Americans who have been brutally affected by terrorism and ensure accountability under the law.”
In November, Texas began more aggressive legal efforts against organizations long alleged by researchers and law enforcement to be part of a domestic Hamas support network in the United States. Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Nov. 18, the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as terrorist organizations.
A month later, Paxton filed a motion defending the designation in court, countering a suit by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin chapters of CAIR. “My office will continue to defend the governor’s lawful, accurate declaration that CAIR is an FTO [foreign terrorist organization], as well as Texas’s right to protect itself from organizations with documented ties to foreign extremist movements,” Paxton said at the time.
In its latest statement, Paxton’s office described how on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the groups AMP and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) “declared that they were ‘part of’ a ‘Unity Intifada’ under Hamas’s ‘unified command.’”
“Those who have been victimized by Hamas’s terrorism brought claims against the radical groups under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act,” the statement continued. “Attorney General Paxton’s brief is in support of the victims and was filed to ensure terrorist supporters are brought to justice.”
The legal brief references the “unity intifada” and “unified command” sentiments before stating, “They should be taken at their word. And just like their predecessor organizations — convicted or admitted material supporters of Hamas — they should be held accountable.”
The brief charges, “Defendants here are alleged to have provided material support for Hamas, the brutal terrorist regime that not only oppresses millions in Gaza but that also murdered more than a thousand innocents and kidnapped hundreds more. States have an interest in ensuring that valid claims brought under material support statutes are allowed to be litigated in court and that any violators are held accountable.”
Last year, Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares — whose name appears at the lead of the brief — sought to press AMP to reveal its funding sources, which a judge ruled it needed to do May 9, 2025.
The latest brief provides a history lesson about how AMP and NSJP “did not begin their material support for Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023; rather, their material support has been going on for decades — both as the current organizations and through predecessor entities. Indeed, AMP was founded after a predecessor organization and five of its board members were convicted of providing material support for Hamas.” The brief describes the network beginning when “first, the Muslim Brotherhood founded the ‘Palestine Committee’ in 1988 to fund the terrorist organization Hamas.”
This network included “several organizations providing Hamas financial, informational, and political support,” the legal document explained. “Among those organizations were the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), organizations founded and controlled by senior members of Hamas leadership.”