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As 1000+ rabbis sign anti-Mamdani letter, others decry mounting ‘red lines’ in Jewish communities
(JTA) — Two days after Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove delivered a sermon urging congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani, rabbis across the country were asked to sign a letter quoting him.
By the time it was published Wednesday, 650 rabbis and cantors had done so, adding their names calling out the “political normalization” of anti-Zionism among figures like Mamdani, the New York City mayoral frontrunner.
By Friday, the letter had more than 1,000 signatories, making it one of the most-signed rabbinic letters in U.S. history.
But Cosgrove, the senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, was not one of them.
“As a policy, I do not sign group letters,” he said in an interview.
“My fear of such letters is they can flatten subjects and reduce complex issues to ‘Who’s on a letter and who’s not on a letter?’” he added. “There are other platforms that rabbis can give expression to their leadership.”
As the letter has ricocheted across the country and escaped from rabbis’ inboxes to their congregants’ social media feeds, it has ignited a wave of scrutiny, plaudits and recriminations. Some people have voiced relief or disappointment in seeing their rabbi’s name on the list — or on not seeing it.
“Jewish communities are circulating spreadsheets of who signed and who didn’t,” wrote Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein in an essay describing what she said was “a painful public reckoning” taking place both publicly and privately.
“I am not sleeping. These red lines are so dangerous,” responded Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Hermann, of Manhattan’s Society for the Advancement of Judaism, in one of dozens of comments representing a wide range of views. Hermann devoted her Yom Kippur sermon earlier this month to calling on her community to “become an antidote to the polarization and fragmentation in our broader Jewish community and society.”
Now, facing renewed pressure from their congregants over the letter, some New York City rabbis are articulating alternative strategies for responding to a political moment that many Jews are experiencing as fraught and high-stakes.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl wrote to all members of Central Synagogue, the Manhattan Reform congregation where she is senior rabbi, to explain why they would not find her among the letter’s signatories.
“As a Central clergy team, we have spoken from the pulpit in multiple past sermons and will continue to take a clear, unambiguous position on antisemitism, on anti-Zionist rhetoric, and on sharing our deep support for Israel,” she wrote.
But, citing the importance of “separation of church and state,” Buchdahl wrote that “it is up to each of us to vote our conscience.”
“There are political organizations, including Jewish ones, where electoral politics is the core mission. Get involved,” she wrote. “Central Synagogue, however, is a Jewish spiritual home and we want to keep it that way. It remains our conviction that political endorsements of candidates are not in the best interest of our congregation, community, or country.”
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side sent out a letter of his own to congregants. He said he would not be voting for Mamdani but did not believe it was his role to tell them how to vote. And he raised concerns about what he said was the “shearing off of liberal from conservative liberal communities,” saying that Jews of all political outlooks should be able to pray and act together.
“The Torah commands lo titgodedu, traditionally interpreted to mean, don’t fragment yourselves into factions,” Kalmanofsky wrote. “I fear this happening to Jews. Frankly, I fear it more than I fear an anti-Zionist mayor.”
Rabbi Adam Mintz, who leads the recently rebranded Modern Orthodox congregation Shtiebel @ JCC, said he’d signed a smaller letter from Manhattan Orthodox rabbis urging the importance of voting. But Mintz felt this letter was outside his role.
“I’m a rabbi. I don’t want to take a political stand,” he said. “I understand that some people feel strongly and they want to take a political stand. I think that’s OK, but that’s not my role.”
Rabbi Michelle Dardashti of Kane Street Synagogue, an egalitarian Conservative synagogue in Brooklyn, did not sign the letter, either. She instead took a different approach to addressing her congregants in the lead-up to the election, hosting about 80 of them Tuesday night for an evening of dialogue.
Members representing a spectrum of views took turns sharing questions and concerns ahead of the election. Dardashti said congregants, despite conflicting views, were “deeply engaged and passionate, and spoke beautifully and respectfully.”
“I understand my rabbinic role to be one that creates space for people to learn from each other’s different experiences, and therefore perspectives,” she said.
Some Jewish leaders and groups outright opposed the letter and its message, rather than considering it an ill-advised strategy. Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish organization that endorsed Mamdani, released a statement excoriating the letter and its signatories for distracting from what it said was the real issue: Donald Trump.
“These Jewish leaders are doing Trump and the MAGA movement’s work for them: dividing our pro-democracy movement at a time when we need to be united to beat back fascism,” the statement read.
Josh Whinston, a rabbi in Ann Arbor, Michigan, expressed skepticism on social media about the letter’s origin and intentions, and noted that he did not sign it.
“This was not a call for moral clarity; it was a political move aimed at influencing a local race in New York City,” he wrote.
Upon first reading it, Whinston wrote that he “agreed with parts of what it said,” and that he “considered signing.” But, hoping to learn more about the Jewish Majority, the group behind the letter, Whinston wrote, “The site offered no substance. There was no mission, no vision, no leadership, no staff.”
The Jewish Majority’s goal, as stated on its website, is to counterbalance left-wing “fringe groups” like Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which they say “weaponize the Jewish identity of some of their members to call for policy recommendations that are rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community.”
The executive director of the Jewish Majority, Jonathan Schulman, is a former longtime AIPAC staffer. In an interview, Schulman said he wrote the letter’s first draft before it underwent rounds of edits from about 40 rabbis of different denominations.
The inspiration came when “Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon started making the rounds,” he said, adding, “By Sunday morning, rabbis were reaching out to me saying, ‘This is the kind of sentiment we’re feeling all over the country.’”
Unlike Cosgrove’s sermon, which included an endorsement of Andrew Cuomo, the letter does not mention either of Mamdani’s opponents. It does, however, say that political figures like “Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide,” and calls on Americans to “stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.”
Schulman recalled being told, “‘There’s the issue of Zohran Mamdani and calls to globalize the intifada and all this, but there’s anti-Zionist candidates running for mayor in Somerville, Massachusetts, in Minneapolis, Seattle — this is becoming normalized, this is becoming mainstream.’”
Rabbi Mark Miller of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is one of the rabbis who helped edit the letter. He said part of his goal was to help clarify its nature as being national rather than local.
“This was not an attempt for the rest of us to get involved in New York politics,” Miller said. “It’s highlighting it, but the issue is that everywhere we are, this is a concern.”
Signatories on the letter include rabbis from across the United States, and even outside the country.
Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg, the senior rabbi of a Reform congregation in St. Louis, signed the letter, and said the message about anti-Zionism resonated with her on a national level.
“Mamdani was the big race that was talked about in this, but it’s come up in other races, right?” Rosenberg said, pointing to the comeback bid of “Squad” member Cori Bush to represent St. Louis in Congress.
Rabbi Jeremy Barras from Miami said a number of his congregants have residences in New York, and “they’re just terrified.”
“But I would’ve signed it if it was the same issue in any city in America,” Barras said. “It just happens to be true that we’re a little more sensitive because so many of our families have connections in New York.”
Both Barras and Rosenberg said they couldn’t remember an open letter signed by this many rabbis. There have in fact been examples of open letters being signed by 1,000-plus rabbis, including an appeal to open Palestine to Jews in 1945; a 2017 letter calling on Trump to support refugees and a letter from earlier this year demanding Israel stop “using starvation as a weapon of war.”
Yehuda Kurtzer, co-president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, affirmed that open letters like the one distributed by the Jewish Majority are nothing new, and said there is “definitely a tension that emerges” for those expected to sign. Endorsements from the pulpit, on the other hand, are “new terrain,” he said, noting the Trump administration’s decision to stop enforcement of an IRS rule barring political endorsements from religious institutions.
“We felt pretty strongly that rabbis should not generally do this, and there’s a whole variety of reasons,” Kurtzer said. “It’s a plausible scenario that politicians will start doing quid pro quos with religious leaders around their needs. Once you do it once there’s an expectation that you’ll do it all the time.”
Some of the rabbis who signed say they weren’t making a partisan political statement. Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side and the leader of a Zionist organization within the Reform movement, acknowledged “worries” about alienating some congregants. But, like others who’ve come out against Mamdani, Hirsch said it was non-partisan to speak out against someone whose rhetoric could compromise Jewish safety.
“There’s always the risk that people will understand you in a partisan way, especially since we’re living in such a hyper-partisan atmosphere now,” Hirsch said. “But it’s a risk that we have to take because the stakes are so high.”
Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El made a similar point. “I’m not going to tell people who they ought to vote for. But I do think it’s important for me to let them know what I think they ought to be thinking about when they vote,” he said, pointing to issues like “the well-being of the State of Israel and the safety of the Jewish community.”
For Cosgrove, whose synagogue is located 20 blocks from Davidson’s, the division that’s arisen since his sermon is something to grieve.
“It deeply saddens me that, in a moment where the Jewish community should be thinking about the external threats that our community faces, that we should be spending an iota of energy on that which exacerbates any fault lines,” Cosgrove said.
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Jewish New Yorkers rally outside Park East Synagogue, 2 weeks after anti-Israel protest there
(JTA) — Hundreds of New York City Jews and their allies braved the cold Thursday evening for a rally outside Park East Synagogue, where pro-Palestinian protesters had demonstrated two weeks prior shouting chants like “Globalize the Intifada” and “Death to the IDF.”
Thursday’s demonstrators carried signs distributed by organizers that read “Proud New Yorkers, Jews, Zionists.” Others brought signs from home with messages including “Proudly Park East” and “Anti-Zionism is Jew hate is not OK.” Messages from speakers focused mostly on the protesters’ rhetoric and embracing Israel as an important part of Jewish life.
“This evening we come together representing the scale, strength and diversity of our incredible New York Jewish community,” said Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, which spearheaded the rally. “And we gather outside the sacred space that was so violently targeted a few weeks ago.”
In referring to “sacred space,” Goldstein was using the language that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani used when he responded to the protest in a way that many of his Jewish critics found disappointing. But if it was meant to be an allusion, Goldstein didn’t say. In fact, no one mentioned Mamdani directly from the speaker podium as a number of Jewish elected officials and community leaders addressed the crowd and denounced the rhetoric used by the protesters.
Joanna Samuels, CEO of the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, came the closest with comments that appeared to allude to criticisms of the incoming mayor, a longtime and staunch devotee to the pro-Palestinian cause.
“The great leaders of our city have sought to unite people of all backgrounds around broad common goals,” she said, adding that New York’s greatest leaders “have not been ideologues.”
“Our great leaders have had the maturity and discipline to get rid of divisive language and rhetoric in service of their love of our city and their love of New Yorkers,” Samuels said. “I invite all of our leaders and our future leaders to uphold these values, and to demand them from those who speak in your name and on your behalf.”
The rally, which also featured a performance by the musician Mastisyahu, drew both critics and allies of Mamdani in politics. It represents a show of force as Jewish leaders in the city ready themselves for Mamdani’s inauguration on Jan. 1, when the city will go from having a mayor who prides himself on being pro-Israel to having one who has called for its boycott.
Mamdani was asked about the pro-Israel solidarity rally at an unrelated event earlier on Thursday.
“On those who are rallying today, and on Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs, I look forward to being a mayor for each and every one of them, and each and every person who calls the city home,” Mamdani said. “And being that mayor means protecting those New Yorkers, it also means celebrating and cherishing those New Yorkers.”
A spokesperson for Mamdani said two weeks ago that he would continue to “discourage” the language used at the Park East protest. But speakers on Thursday called out the protesters in far more explicit terms, saying they used antisemitic rhetoric.
Those speakers included Mark Levine, the comptroller-elect who traded endorsements with the mayor-elect, and will be one of the most powerful officials in the city government alongside Mamdani.
“We are out here in the cold to denounce the hatred that was directed at our fellow Jewish New Yorkers outside of this synagogue,” Levine asserted. “It is never OK to call for the death of anyone, as these protesters did. It is not OK to obstruct and threaten people entering a house of worship, as these protesters did.”
Levine himself has been the subject of protests by left-wing groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which endorsed Mamdani and, like the mayor-elect, opposes Levine’s intention to invest city funds in Israel bonds.
Levine also defended attendees of the event inside Park East, which was organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a nonprofit that facilitates North Americans’ immigration to Israel, saying, “You can be interested in immigrating to a country even if you don’t agree with every policy of the government of that country.”
He added, “And in the case of Israel, one of the most common reasons people are interested in immigrating is to flee antisemitism, which is on the rise in New York and America — a fact perhaps lost on the protesters, who were busy trying to make the attendees feel unsafe.”
Jewish State Assembly member Micah Lasher, who is running for Congress in the 12th district which includes Park East, commended Levine on social media for his “powerful words.”
Lasher arrived at the event alongside Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Jewish state senator and incoming Manhattan borough president who endorsed Lasher in October.
Both politicians had endorsed Mamdani in the general election, as did Assemblymember Alex Bores, one of Lasher’s opponents in the 12th district; Sen. Liz Krueger, who is Jewish; and City Council Member Gale Brewer, who were all present. Meanwhile, another notable attendee — Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League — has had an antagonistic relationship with the mayor-elect, who is the subject of the ADL’s “Mamdani Monitor.”
While Mamdani was alluded to in Samuels’ remarks, some attendees said they felt that he should have been discussed explicitly.
Aaron Herman, a former New York City resident who commuted in from White Plains, in Westchester County north of the city, said he and his rabbi were discussing the subject.
“He brought up to me, like, ‘There’s one thing that was missing during this incredible rally: No one actually mentioned our mayor-elect, Mamdani,’” Herman said. “The mayor-elect said something wrong. It needs to be addressed.”
Herman shared a video he took at the rally of Rabbi Avi Weiss, the founder of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, in which Weiss noted that Mamdani had not been mentioned. “We’re 15 minutes into this rally and I’ve not heard the word Mamdani,” Weiss said. “He’s the problem. … I’m so proud of this rally and the people who planned it but don’t be afraid to stand up to the challenge that we face in the future — and that is the mayor elect, Mamdani.” He then sought to lead others in the crowd in chanting, “Mamdani, we are Israel.”
Still, Herman and other attendees said they appreciated the event altogether, which brought Jews from around the city to the Upper East Side. Buses were chartered from areas like Riverdale, a Bronx neighborhood with many Israeli and Orthodox Jewish residents.
“It was nice to see everyone come together,” said Allison Levy, who was also among the pro-Israel counter-protesters outside the Nefesh B’Nefesh event. “I wish we could do this more often because it seems like we’re really divided, so it was nice that people showed up — especially considering how cold it is.”
The rally included performances from Jewish musician Matisyahu, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel, and Park East Synagogue’s youth choir. Park East’s 95-year-old senior rabbi, Arthur Schneier, spoke, imploring lawmakers to implement a law prohibiting protests directly outside houses of worship.
Schneier’s son Marc, also a rabbi, has urged Mamdani to support such legislation, to which Mamdani’s team has expressed openness. Lasher co-introduced a bill banning protests within 25 feet of houses of worship on Wednesday.
Other speakers included Rabbis Joseph Potasnik and Sara Hurwitz of the New York Board of Rabbis, and 92NY’s David Ingber. Potasnik is one of five rabbis sitting on Mamdani’s transition committees.
Police blocked off the entire block of 68th Street between Lexington and Third avenues, accompanied by security from Hatzalah and the Community Security Service, Jewish security groups. Multiple speakers commended the NYPD, which had previously drawn criticism for not properly responding to the initial protest, leading commissioner Jessica Tisch to apologize at a Park East Shabbat service.
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JD Vance rejects claims that antisemitism is growing inside the GOP, breaking his silence on the topic
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that he does not believe antisemitism is surging inside the Republican Party, pushing back on prominent conservatives who have raised alarms about hostility toward Jews among young right-wing activists.
“I do think it’s important to call this stuff out when I see it. I also, when I talk to young conservatives, I don’t see some simmering antisemitism that’s exploding,” Vance told NBC News in an interview marking his first year in office.
Vance said antisemitism is wrong, stating that “judging anybody based on their skin color or immutable characteristics, I think, is fundamentally anti-American and anti-Christian.” (Vance himself is a convert to Catholicism who recently said he hopes his Hindu wife chooses to become a Christian in the future.)
Vance added, “In any bunch of apples, you have bad people. But my attitude on this is we should be firm in saying antisemitism and racism is wrong. … I think it’s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic.”
These remarks amount to Vance’s most direct response to Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent figures on the right who have in recent weeks have warned of rising antisemitism among conservatives especially after Tucker Carlson, a Vance ally, hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast.
Vance’s comments land amid a larger, unresolved debate inside Republican circles over how seriously to treat the rise of explicitly antisemitic figures such as Fuentes, whose online “groyper” movement has attracted a following among young GOP staffers and activists. Jewish conservatives and other right-leaning commentators have expressed alarm at Fuentes’ influence, estimating that significant numbers of junior Republican staffers consume his content. Fuentes has described “organized Jewry” as a threat to American unity.
Vance’s silence on antisemitism was a prominent topic of conversation at a recent confab for Jewish conservatives, where speakers questioned his close association with Carlson.
President Donald Trump recently defended Carlson after the podcast host interviewed Fuentes, saying, “You can’t tell him who to interview.” Carlson campaigned for Trump in 2024 and remains influential within the administration. Trump himself met with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, later claiming he did not know who Fuentes was.
Vance has taken a similarly restrained approach. He defended Carlson’s son, Buckley, from accusations of antisemitism without addressing Carlson’s interview with Fuentes. In October, he was criticized for responding to a college student’s question about Jews and Israel without acknowledging its antisemitic framing.
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Ireland, Spain, Netherlands announce boycott of Eurovision following failed effort to oust Israel
(JTA) — Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia’s public broadcasters said they will boycott this year’s Eurovision Song Contest after a Thursday meeting of the European Broadcasting Union confirmed Israel’s participation.
The Thursday General Assembly meeting in Switzerland of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the annual song competition, was convened to discuss some members’ calls to have Israel ousted from the contest over the war in Gaza and allegations of voting interference.
But despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, the EBU instead said that its members approved new rules prohibiting voter interference from governments and third parties. (Several countries called for an audit of Eurovision’s public voting system after Israel’s Yuval Raphael took second place last year after being bolstered by the audience vote.)
While the EBU did not reference Israel in its press release following the meeting, it said that there would be “no need for a further vote on participation.”
“A large majority of Members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,” the EBU said in a statement Thursday.
Delphine Ernotte Cunci, the EBU’s president, praised the decision in a statement, saying that the result “demonstrates our members’ shared commitment to protecting transparency and trust in the Eurovision Song Contest.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote in a post on X that he was “pleased” that Israel will be included in this year’s competition, adding, “Israel deserves to be represented on every stage around the world, a cause to which I am fully and actively committed.”
And Golan Yochpaz, the CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN, told EBU members during the meeting that “the attempt to remove KAN from the contest can only be understood as a cultural boycott.”
“A boycott may begin today with Israel, but no one knows where it will end or who else it may harm,” continued Yochpaz. “Are EBU members willing to be part of a step that harms freedom of creation and freedom of expression?”
But after the meeting, several public broadcasters that had previously stated their intention to boycott the competition if Israel was allowed to compete followed through on their promises.
The Netherlands’ public broadcaster AVROTROS said in a statement that it had finalized its decision to boycott the competition, citing the “severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza, the suppression of press freedom, and the political interference during the last Eurovision Song Contest.”
RTÉ, the public broadcaster of Ireland, also announced that it was pulling out of the song contest:
“RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “RTÉ remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory.”
The secretary general of RTVE, the public broadcaster in Spain, also criticized the EBU for declining some members’ requests to hold a vote on Israel’s participation in a press release announcing its withdrawal.
“We would like to express our serious doubts about the participation of Israeli broadcaster KAN in Eurovision 2026,” RTVE Secretary General Alfonso Morales said in an address at the meeting. “The situation in Gaza, despite the ceasefire and the approval of the peace process, and Israel’s use of the contest for political purposes, make it increasingly difficult to maintain Eurovision as a neutral cultural event.”
In her address to EBU members before the decision, the president of the board of Slovenia’s public broadcaster, Natalija Gorščak, said, “We are hostages of the political interests of the Israeli government.”
“For the third year in a row, the public has demanded that we say no to the participation of any country that attacks another country. We must follow European standards for peace and understanding,” said Gorščak. “Our message is: we will not participate in the ESC if Israel is there. On behalf of the 20,000 children who died in Gaza.”
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