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Angela Buchdahl, prominent NYC rabbi, ratchets up criticism of Zohran Mamdani — and cautions against Jewish infighting
(JTA) — Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, one of New York City’s most prominent rabbis, addressed the growing turmoil within New York’s Jewish community over the upcoming mayoral election — delivering a sermon at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue Friday night that included her most pointed comments yet about frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, while reaffirming her refusal to endorse or oppose any political candidate.
“I fear living in a city, and a nation, where anti-Zionist rhetoric is normalized and contagious,” Buchdahl said during services at her synagogue, one of the country’s largest Reform congregations. “Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism.”
She cited Mamdani’s 2023 remark, surfaced this week, saying the New York Police Department had learned aggressive policing tactics from the Israeli army and his past reluctance to label Hamas a terrorist group.
Yet even as she condemned the rhetoric, Buchdahl rejected calls from some in the Jewish community to endorse in the mayoral race — a demand that has placed her, and other prominent New York rabbis, under intense pressure in recent weeks.
The city’s Jewish institutions, already reeling from a war in Gaza that led to intense anti-Israel protests, have been alarmed by the rise of Mamdani, a progressive state assemblyman from Queens and anti-Zionist critic of Israel. Jewish leaders across the denominational spectrum have debated whether rabbis should publicly oppose his candidacy, citing fears about normalization of anti-Zionism in politics and worries that if elected Mamdani will not protect Jewish interests.
Last month, over 1,100 Jewish clergy signed a letter denouncing Mamdani and the “normalization of anti-Zionism,” quoting another prominent Manhattan rabbi, Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue, who in a recent sermon endorsed Mamdani’s independent opponent, former N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In a sign that Jews are not of one mind on Mamdani’s candidacy, more that 200 rabbis, at least 40 located in or near New York City, signed a second letter charging the first letter was divisive.
Buchdahl, who has a national profile as the country’s first Asian-American woman rabbi and as a sought-out spokesperson on Jewish affairs, had previously written to her members to explain why she would not endorse any candidate or sign public political letters, despite her “steadfast support of Israel and Zionism.”
After Buchdahl declined to sign the rabbinic letter, she drew withering attacks on social media from those who said she was failing to advance Jewish interests — some from her own congregants.
In her latest remarks, Buchdahl said she felt so compelled to address the tension directly that she returned during a sabbatical taken to promote her new book.
“I knew I needed to be here with my Jewish family,” she said. “Some of you agreed with my position. Some of you, very emphatically, did not.”
She continued, “I was flooded with emails of support, and I want to thank all of you who shared those words with me. But I want to offer even more thanks to those of you who privately and respectfully shared your disagreement with me. I have been listening, and I want to respond in person tonight because that is what you do when you care about your family.”
Buchdahl framed her sermon around Lech Lecha, the Torah portion in which Abraham and Sarah leave the familiarity of home for “a place they do not know.” The story, she suggested, mirrors the community’s uncertainty about its place in a shifting political and moral landscape.
She spoke both to those who see the election as “an existential moment for our Jewish community” and to younger Jews who fear that “our community has become too focused on fear and what can be done to us.”
She acknowledged that Mamdani has met recently with Jewish civic and business leaders and softened some of his language. “I would not quickly trust a campaigning politician changing his lifelong positions,” she said. “But I hear those who believe we must engage even with those we deeply disagree with, or risk isolating ourselves from the broader good of this city.”
Drawing on an idea from Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi, Buchdahl described the community’s divide as one between “Purim Jews” — who prioritize vigilance and self-protection — and “Passover Jews,” who emphasize empathy and justice for the vulnerable. “Both memories are sacred, and both are necessary,” she said. “Compassion without caution is reckless naïveté; vigilance without empathy is paranoia or despair.”
While acknowledging that she is “terrified by how anti-Zionist rhetoric and antisemitic tropes have led to some deadly violence against Jews,” Buchdahl also turned her concern inward to talk about the internal Jewish tensions. “It endangers all of us: the way we are trying to impose a litmus test on other Jews, essentially saying you’re either with us or you’re against us,” she said. “Pitting Jew against Jew. Rabbi against rabbi.”
She warned that such divisions could do more damage than any outside threat. “Both Temples were destroyed because of sinat chinam — senseless hate,” she said. “We can argue robustly and should. But disputation does not require defamation.”
Buchdahl also defended her decision not to make political endorsements, invoking both the federal Johnson Amendment — the decades-old ban on political campaigning by religious institutions that the IRS recently announced it would stop enforcing — and Central Synagogue’s own policy of non-endorsement. “Once a rabbi can tell you how to vote, imagine donations being given, or withheld, in exchange for a rabbi’s thumb on the scale,” she said.
Instead, she pledged to continue speaking on “moral issues that unfold in the political realm,” regardless of partisanship. “I thanked President Biden for standing with Israel after Oct. 7, and I thanked President Trump for helping bring home the hostages after others failed,” she said.
Buchdahl concluded with a message of hope, describing meetings with Jewish students at Yale, Brandeis and Harvard who, she said, “don’t want to be defined by fear.”
“They want a Jewish community where disagreement doesn’t mean disconnection,” she said. “We will find our way forward if we walk it together.”
Buchdahl’s sermon was applauded and received a standing ovation from the congregation.
The post Angela Buchdahl, prominent NYC rabbi, ratchets up criticism of Zohran Mamdani — and cautions against Jewish infighting appeared first on The Forward.
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Door-to-Door Anti-Israel Boycott Campaigns in Britain Raise Alarm Bells Over Hostile Environment Toward Jews
Protesters from “Palestine Action” demonstrate on the roof of Guardtech Group in Brandon, Suffolk, Britain, July 1, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Across Britain, local Jewish communities are raising alarms bells over pro-Palestinian boycott activists going door-to-door to track residents who refuse to shun Israeli products, fueling an increasingly hostile and intimidating environment for Jews and Israelis.
Earlier this week, South Yorkshire Police, which serves Sheffield and surrounding areas in northern England, opened an investigation following a violent clash in the Woodseats neighborhood, in the southern part of the city, between the anti-Israel activists demanding residents boycott Israeli goods and opponents who called them “Jew hunters.”
Known as Sheffield Apartheid Free Zone (SAFZ), this anti-Israel group has been active for months across neighborhoods in Sheffield and other parts of the United Kingdom.
As part of a broader effort to undermine the Jewish state internationally, the group distributes materials urging boycotts of Israeli products, claiming that “Israel thrives on international support.”
“When we choose not to buy Israeli goods, it hurts them in the most central place – their economy. Boycotts have worked before. They were a powerful factor in ending apartheid in South Africa and together we can replicate that success,” says one of the group’s propaganda materials.
Sparking outrage among local Jewish communities and political leaders, the group reportedly tracks residents’ responses, noting whether they are “no answer, not interested, or supportive.”
Earlier this week, a violent confrontation erupted in the Woodseats neighborhood in northern England after pro-Israel activists who had learned of the group’s activities on social media arrived on the scene.
Jean Hatchet, a local activist, confronted the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators, following them through the streets while shouting “Jew hunters are coming” and waving a sign reading “No tolerance for Jew hatred.”
According to Hatchet’s testimony, one group member snatched the sign from her hands and struck her on the head, prompting her to file a police complaint alleging assault motivated by religion.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Hatchet claimed the group actively maintains a “blacklist” of anyone who supports Israel.
“They’re taking addresses of people who don’t agree with their point of view,” the pro-Israel activist said. “We have data protection regulations in this country and they’re committing acts that cross the boundaries of what’s permitted.”
Similar door-to-door boycott campaigns have been reported in Bristol and Hackney in England, Cardiff in Wales, and Belfast and Glasgow in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Last Saturday, pro-Palestinian activists were filmed going door-to-door in Brighton, a coastal city in southern England, asking residents to sign pledges to boycott Israeli products.
Vicky Bogel, founder of the pro-Israel group “Jewish and Proud” in Brighton, denounced the incident after witnessing eight teams of volunteers moving systematically from house to house with clipboards and lists of addresses.
“They found out who has ‘Zionist tendencies’ and who doesn’t and where they live,” Bogel told the Jewish Chronicle. “This is cunning and dangerous activity; we’re talking about an intimidation campaign at another level.”
Peter Kyle, the British trade secretary and a member of Parliament representing Brighton, strongly condemned these latest incidents, calling for police investigations into the groups for potential hate crimes and incitement.
However, Sussex Police, which covers the Brighton area, said that “there is currently no evidence of criminal activity,” while acknowledging that the reports are under review.
The Israeli embassy in London also condemned the incidents, calling them a “disgrace” and warning that such campaigns fuel intimidation and hostility toward Jewish communities across the country.
“Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation,” the statement read.
“Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest chapters of European history,” it continued. “Decent people should call this out, clearly and without hesitation.”
What happened in Brighton and Sheffield was a disgrace. Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation.
Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest… pic.twitter.com/BO7IhidcuW
— Israel in the UK
(@IsraelinUK) February 18, 2026
Earlier this month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, revealed in an annual report that it recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025, the second-highest total ever in a single calendar year and an increase of 4 percent from the 3,556 in 2024.
Last year averaged 308 antisemitic incidents each month — an exact doubling of the 154 monthly average in the year before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Antisemitic incidents had fallen from the record high of 4,298 in 2023, which analysts say was fueled by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack — the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
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Two Men Spit, Say ‘Free Palestine’ as They Attempt to Gain Access to Jewish Center in Dallas
Two young men who attempted to gain entry to a Jewish life center in Dallas by claiming to be window cleaners. Photo: Screenshot
Jewish community leaders on Monday denounced an antisemitic incident in which two men trespassed the grounds of the Olami Dallas Center in Texas and demanded entry to the home of its rabbi by claiming to be window cleaners.
According to StandWithUs, the perpetrators rang the doorbell of Rabbi Yaakov Rubin, who refused to let them, in response to which one of the men spat on the property as the other said “Free Palestine.” StandWithUs added that they also said “fake Jews” during their attempt to gain access to the building.
However, after realizing they were caught on camera, one of the perpetrators then yelled: “I love the Jews.”
StandWithUs shared video footage of the incident.
“There’s much brazenness required to walk up to a house, in an attempt to intimidate a Jewish Life center, and its host family, ring the doorbell, and say, ‘Free Palestine,’” Rubin said in a statement included in a press release StandWithUs issued following the incident. “This requires us to be that much bolder and proud of our Jewishness and Israel, through open pride, a strong sense of identity and nurturing our mission from G-d. We don’t run, won’t hide, we will be a light to the world.”
The incident at the Olami center comes amid a period of anti-Jewish violence in the US that is unprecedented in the country’s history. Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Jews have been murdered on the streets of Washington D.C., firebombed in Colorado with Molotov cocktails, and gang assaulted. In a recent incident just last month, a young man apparently radicalized by the far right set the Beth Israel Congregation on fire over its “Jewish ties,” a catastrophic event which has shut down the Jewish house of worship for the foreseeable future. Another arsonist struck the San Francisco Hillel building in December.
In Monday’s press release, Jordan Cope, director for policy and education at StandWithUs, said this latest incident is a reminder of the degree to which antisemitism is coupled with anti-Zionism.
“The youth’s mention of ‘fake Jews’ before his subsequent ‘free Palestine’ assertion followed by his ‘I love the Jews’ comments, is a clear reminder of how bigots all too often disingenuously disguise their antisemitism as a matter of Middle Eastern politics,” Cope said. “Efforts to intimidate the Jewish people into abandoning their pride of their indigenous homeless ultimately seek to intimidate Jews into silence and submission at a time where antisemitism continues to run rife throughout the West.”
He added, “Antisemitism is an age-old hatred. Anti-Israel sentiment is its newest spear.”
For several consecutive years, antisemitism in the US has surged to break “all previous annual records,” according to a series of reports issued by the ADL since it began recording data on antisemitic incidents.
The FBI disclosed similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
The wave of hatred has changed how American Jews perceive their status in America.
According to the results of a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federations of North America, a majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US.
A striking 57 percent reported believing “that antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience,” the organizations disclosed, while 55 percent said they have personally witnessed or been subjected to antisemitic hatred, including physical assaults, threats, and harassment, in the past year.
The survey results revealed other disturbing trends: Jewish victims are internalizing their experiences, as 74 percent did not report what happened to them to “any institution or organization”; Jewish youth are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, having faced communications which aim to exclude Jews or delegitimize their concerns about rising hate; roughly a third of survey respondents show symptoms of anxiety; and the cultural climate has fostered a sense in the Jewish community that the non-Jewish community would not act as a moral guardrail against violence and threats.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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In JFNA’s first ‘State of the Jewish Union’ address, security and antisemitism loom large
(JTA) — Speaking from Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Eric Fingerhut, laid out his assessment of the state of Jewish life in America.
“The state of the Jewish union in America is strong, but it is being tested,” said Fingerhut. “We are united in our commitment to America and to Jewish life, even as we worry about the real threats of violence and the growing acceptance of antisemitic rhetoric.”
During his remarks, which was billed as JFNA’s inaugural “State of the Jewish Union” address ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address next week, Fingerhut issued six recommendations to Congress which centered on increasing security for Jewish communities.
They included providing federal support for security personnel, expanding FBI capabilities to counter domestic terrorism, increasing support for local and state law enforcement, prosecuting hate crimes aggressively and holding social media companies accountable for amplifying antisemitic rhetoric.
“Jewish children and teens are facing growing risks online, including antisemitic harassment, bullying and extremist content,” said Fingerhut. “We recognize the difficulty of legislating in this field, but states are moving forward, and it’s time for Congress to move forward as well.”
Fingerhut also called on Congress to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, and “make the program more flexible and simpler to use.” (This year, the program is requiring recipients to support federal immigration enforcement and avoid programs advancing diversity, raising concern among many Jewish groups, including JFNA.)
At the beginning of his address, Fingerhut also emphasized the ties between the American Jewish community and Israel, which have come under scrutiny since JFNA published a survey earlier this month which found that only one-third of American Jews say they identify as Zionist.
“The focus of today’s talk will be about the state of Jews in America, but it is not possible to have that conversation without acknowledging and addressing the emotional, familial and religious connection between the American Jewish community and the people of Israel,” said Fingerhut.
Fingerhut’s remarks come shortly after Bret Stephens, the right-leaning Jewish New York Times columnist, argued during his 92NY’s annual “The State of World Jewry” speech that groups devoted to combating antisemitism, including the Anti-Defamation League, should abandon their strategy and instead focus on bolstering Jewish education and communal infrastructure.
During Fingerhut’s address, which largely centered on the security burdens placed on Jewish communities and concern for changes to social services funding, he also pivoted to a broader vision of Jewish life beyond the need for protection alone.
“It is important for the Congress to know that Jewish life is not only what we are protecting, but what we are building,” said Fingerhut. “It is Jewish education and Jewish experiences, but it is also human services, dignity and belonging.”
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