Go figure: A non-Jewish, non-Zionist politician has sparked a national Jewish conversation about the role of the rabbi. 

If elected next week, the 34-year-old progressive Zohran Mamdani would be the first mayor of New York City who came up through the trenches of pro-Palestinian activism, and the first to reject the idea that being mayor to a city with 1 million Jews means being a supporter of Israel.

The prospect has shaken a Jewish mainstream that has long taken that support for granted, considers Zionism a pillar of its Jewish identity and sees Mamdani as an enabler of the kind of strident anti-Israel protests that make them feel unsafe. 

In turn, that has put pressure on rabbis throughout the five boroughs and beyond to take a stand — not just by defending Zionism and Jewish security but by denouncing Mamdani and endorsing his rivals. With the IRS in July having lifted the 60+-year-old ban that prevented houses of worship from endorsing or opposing candidates, rabbis who would prefer to stay above the fray have lost their cover. 

Also gone are the days when the decision to use the bimah as a bully pulpit was between a rabbi and his or her congregation. Non-Orthodox synagogues regularly post their rabbis’ Shabbat sermons to YouTube. A petition signed by over 1,100 rabbis calling on voters to reject anti-Zionist candidates like Mamdani has become a very public roll call of rabbis who are willing to engage directly in electoral politics. 

The inescapably public profile of being a rabbi amid a high-stakes election was seen in the contrasting positions taken by leaders of two influential and prosperous Manhattan congregations. In a sermon shared on YouTube and the synagogue’s web site, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue made his position clear from his very first sentence: “I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York’s Jewish community.” He not only urged members of his Conservative shul to vote for Mamdani’s leading rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but laid out a specific strategy for convincing undecided and Mamdani-curious Jewish voters to do the same. 

About 30 blocks south, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, whose recent sermon on the Gaza war drew over 120,000 views on YouTube, wrote a letter to her Reform congregation about the mayoral race. Without naming Mamdani, she insisted that elected leaders “must reject the idea that Jewish self-determination is up for negotiation,” while reaffirming her synagogue’s policy “of not endorsing or publicly opposing political candidates.” 

Some might find that coy — a rabbinic version of the New York Times’ controversial “non-endorsement” endorsement of Cuomo. But Buchdahl has become one of the country’s best-known rabbis in part on her ability to articulate Jewish concerns in a way that embraces and respects those who might disagree with her. Her Gaza sermon deftly conveyed Jewish dismay over the scale of the killings and hunger in Gaza while sympathizing with the fears and dilemmas of average Israelis. 

The letter makes clear where she and her team stand on Zionism and fighting antisemitism: “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.” Mamdani was unmistakably the subject when she added, “I hope and expect anyone who becomes mayor of our amazing city — home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel — will take very seriously the expressed concerns (made directly and publicly) of so many of us in the Jewish community.”

She also explains why the synagogue considers nonpartisanship a practical and spiritual value. “It remains our conviction that political endorsements of candidates are not in the best interest of our congregation, community, or country,” she writes, adding, “Our role is not to enter political campaigns or to endorse or speak out against candidates, but to provide moral and spiritual clarity on important public issues.”

Cosgrove doesn’t explicitly address the debate over whether a rabbi should endorse a political candidate, but writes that the stakes of the mayoral race are too high for him not to weigh in on the candidates.

“I wish it were otherwise,” he said. “I wish we had two candidates with equal interest, or better yet, equal disinterest in the Jewish community…. But this election cycle, that is simply not the case. We can only play the cards we are dealt. And in this hand, I choose to play the one that safeguards the Jewish people, protects our community, and ensures that our seat at the table remains secure.”

He also defends his public political stand in spiritual terms. 

“Self-preservation and self-interest are not only legitimate, but essential to sustaining an ethical life,” he said, citing the Talmudic sage Hillel. 

While both rabbis have ranged widely in their sermons and activism, their messages on the mayor’s race offer two different models for leadership. Cosgrove spoke in the voice of a political strategist and community organizer; Buchdahl’s letter was about protecting the integrity of her institution and the diverse individuals it serves.

By dint of their influential congregations, media savvy and charisma, Cosgrove and Buchdahl are rabbis with citywide and, especially in Buchdahl’s case, national stature. The rabbis’ petition quoted Cosgrove, although he did not sign it; Buchdahl recently promoted her memoir about growing up Korean-American, and her unasked for role as a hostage negotiator, on CBS Mornings. Their positions have weight in a debate that has dogged rabbis ever since the pulpit became a place not just for parsing fine points of Jewish law or offering homilies, but commenting on current events. 

A frequently cited role model for activist rabbis is Joachim Prinz, the German refugee who led congregations in Newark, New Jersey and its suburbs in the last century. Even before leaving Germany he would rail against the Nazis. In America, he bucked the clear isolationist trend — and fear among many Jews of a backlash — by insisting that Europe’s fight was America’s fight. 

Prinz rejected the traditional model of the drash, or homily, finding it “too solemn and lacking in concrete meaning. I was always out to find something relevant to the life of the people sitting in front of me.” He wondered how seriously people would take a faith tradition whose clergy couldn’t offer guidance on, say, waging war, addressing poverty or resisting authoritarianism.

Throw in Jewish security, and the stakes get higher yet.

Prinz’s jeremiads against Nazism and later in support of civil rights would assure his place in American-Jewish history. Whether it would assure him a place in a modern American pulpit is another story. Support for “social justice” — in the form of volunteerism and charitable giving — is fine. Also tolerated is a certain amount of activism on consensus issues, which have lately become elusive.

As for urging specific stands on candidates or pieces of legislation — rabbis quickly learn that neither smooths their path to contract renewal.

For many congregants, this is as it should be. They feel that the great knotty corpus of Jewish text shouldn’t be reduced to a policy prescription, or that they shouldn’t be forced to hear a political speech in a house of worship.

Cosgrove especially anticipated the kinds of objections — mostly tactical — he thought he might get from congregants: Opposing a popular candidate like Mamdani would invite an antisemitic backlash, or centering Zionism in the mayor’s race would confirm the slander of dual loyalty. 

Buchdahl faced the opposite pressure: congregants insisting she endorse Cuomo. There have been some nasty Instagram posts calling her timid, with comments suggesting that some congregants may have resigned over the saga.

Buchdahl’s letter insists that declining to endorse does not mean she and the synagogue are abdicating their responsibility to Jewish safety. Rather, she wrote, the synagogue does its job by instilling the values that shape the political decisions of its congregants.

“Our role,” she wrote, “is not to enter political campaigns or to endorse or speak out against candidates, but to provide moral and spiritual clarity on important public issues.”

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The post Rabbis Angela Buchdahl and Elliot Cosgrove show the split in the pulpit over political endorsements appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The terrorist group Hezbollah is rebuilding its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon with Iranian support while openly defying international calls to disarm — a move that has heightened fears of a renewed conflict with Israel and prompted intensified diplomatic efforts by the United States and Egypt to prevent further escalation.

As Lebanon stands on the brink of a major new conflict, the government is intensifying efforts to meet the ceasefire deadline to disarm the Iran-backed terrorist group, while trying to avoid plunging the nation into a civil war.

On Monday, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem once again refused to lay down the Islamist group’s weapons, rebuffinh mounting US pressure and warnings of a possible Israeli military response.

In an interview with the Lebanese outlet Al-Manar, Qassem insisted that the group’s military arsenal is a “legitimate tool for resisting Israel’s occupation and threats.”

“Our weapons are a legitimate means of defending the homeland and our existence,” he said. “There is no separation between our survival and that of the nation, and we reject becoming a target for the enemy’s conditions or calculations.”

The Iranian proxy group also warned that the risk of an escalated conflict “exists,” vowing to defend itself against “Israeli aggression until [its] last breath.” However, Hezbollah also said it has “no intention” of starting a war.

On Tuesday, the Alma Research and Education Center, which focuses on Israel’s security challenges along its northern border, released a new study revealing that Hezbollah, with Iranian backing, has been actively rebuilding its military capabilities, in clear breach of the ceasefire agreement with Israel brokered last year.

According to the report, Hezbollah, with support and sponsorship from the Islamist regime in Tehran, is intensifying efforts to rehabilitate its military capabilities, including the production and repair of weapons, arms and cash smuggling, recruitment and training, and the use of civilian infrastructure as a base and cover for its operations.

Despite suffering heavy losses in its war with Israel, the study also found that the group still maintains several tactical and underground tunnels — among its most valuable assets — particularly in areas where Israeli ground operations did not reach.

“Hezbollah retains operational strike capability in various formats … [but] it does not have broad invasion capability into the Galilee [northern Israel],” the study said.

Tal Beeri, a Middle East expert and author of the report, explained that the Iran-backed terrorist group “is not facing an actual dismantling of its weapons.”

“The State of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces are limited in their ability and willingness to enforce weapons disarmament, among other reasons due to demographic issues, internal cooperation, fear of confrontation, and accessibility constraints,” Beeri said.

With support from Iran, Hezbollah has prioritized survivability and a shift toward covert operations, using civilian infrastructure and activities as both cover and a base for its military rehabilitation, the report explained.

In recent weeks, Israel has conducted strikes targeting this network, particularly south of the Litani River, where Hezbollah operatives are historically most active against the Jewish state.

For years, Israel has demanded that Hezbollah be barred from carrying out activities south of the Litani, located roughly 15 miles from the Israeli border.

The Lebanese government is now facing mounting pressure from Israeli and US officials to disarm Hezbollah and establish a state monopoly on weapons.

According to Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel appears to be preparing to confront Hezbollah again, following recent military strikes.

“War is coming, unless Lebanon’s leadership wakes up from denial and faces its responsibilities to its own citizens,” Ghaddar said in a post on X.

“What can be done? Start disarming Hezbollah in a more serious way – that is, north of Litani and the Beqaa, while targeting Hezbollah’s political and financial infrastructure,” she continued.

WAR IS COMING…
All signs, the military escalation by the IDF on Hezbollah, the drones flying all over Lebanon, the military exercise held by the IDF north of Israel right on the border of Lebanon, among other red flags, all lead to one conclusion: that Israel is readying for…

— Hanin Ghaddar (@haningdr) October 24, 2025

As the Lebanese government pushes to meet a year-end deadline to disarm the terrorist group, the army has been actively dismantling Hezbollah arms caches across the country.

Media reports indicate that the country’s armed forces have reportedly run out of explosives, but operations are set to continue. The army has reportedly been cautious to avoid inflaming tensions, especially among Hezbollah’s Shi’ite base of support, and to buy time for Lebanon’s politicians to reach an agreement about the group’s weapons in other parts of the country.

Earlier this year, Lebanese officials agreed to a US-backed disarmament plan, which called for Hezbollah to be fully disarmed within four months — by November — in exchange for Israel halting airstrikes and withdrawing troops from the five occupied positions in the country’s southern region.

Even though the Lebanese government agreed to a five-stage plan aimed at restoring authority and limiting the influence of the Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah has pushed back against any government efforts, insisting that negotiations to dismantle its arsenal would be a serious misstep while Israel continues airstrikes in the country’s south.

The terrorist group has even threatened protests and civil unrest if the government tries to enforce control over its weapons.

On Monday, US Deputy Middle East Envoy Morgan Ortagus met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut to discuss ongoing disarmament efforts and possible next steps to stabilize the southern region.

According to a press release from his office, Aoun expressed his intention to implement UN Resolution 1701, which would allow the Lebanese army to deploy in the country’s south and ensure that Hezbollah is not armed or present in the area.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration approved $230 million in aid for Lebanon’s security forces to support their efforts to disarm the Iranian proxy.

Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s rocket and drone attacks on northern Israeli communities — which they claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas amid the war in Gaza.

In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.

Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.

However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.

Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — calling such activity “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has announced plans to fight antisemitism in New York City using a curriculum that seems to contradict his own views on Israel.

The “Hidden Voices” program, reviewed by the Forward, teaches students in kindergarten through 12th grade about Jewish Americans in U.S. history and defines Zionism as, “The right to Jewish national self-determination in their ancestral homeland.” That is not language Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, has used himself. Mamdani has repeatedly said Israel does not have a right to exist as a Jewish state, but rather “as a state with equal rights.”

Yet at the mayoral debate last Thursday, Mamdani said he would be a mayor who “actually delivers on the implementation of the ‘Hidden Voices’ curriculum in our school system.”

Mamdani reiterated that position Sunday on ABC’s Up Close with Bill Ritter, saying the curriculum “would celebrate the breadth and the beauty of Jewish life in our city’s history.”

What does the curriculum say about Israel?

The curriculum says “an important aspect of Jewish American identity is a connection to Israel,” citing a 2023 statistic from the Pew Research Center that, “82% of Jewish adults in the United States said caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them.”

It notes that, “For millennia, Jews have directed their prayers toward Jerusalem and continue to do so.” The curriculum also points to traditions like concluding the Passover seder with “Next year in Jerusalem” as evidence of Jews’ enduring connection to Israel.

“Many Jewish Americans have family and friends in Israel, again reinforcing the familial concept of Jews around the world as an ‘am,’ a people,” the curriculum reads.

At the same time, the curriculum acknowledges that Jews “are not a monolith” and hold a range of opinions about Israel. The Jewish figures profiled “exhibit a range of attitudes about Zionism and the state of Israel, from passionate support to disengagement to harsh criticism,” the curriculum says.

For example, the curriculum notes that businessman and progressive philanthropist Julius Rosenwald “did not support Zionism.” It also says that “Jewish students bring a range of feelings and opinions about Israel to the classroom; they should be allowed to develop those ideas and speak for themselves.”

Why was the curriculum created?

“Hidden Voices” began in 2018 as an initiative of the New York City Department of Education to integrate the stories of underrepresented groups into history curriculum. Curricula include lessons on LGBTQ history, Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, the Black and African diaspora, and Americans with disabilities.

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, set out to help create a Jewish version, with historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela as one of the lead authors. Mayor Eric Adams also backed the curriculum, led by his Office to Combat Antisemitism.

The result is a nearly 300-page curriculum that focuses on teaching Jewish history as U.S. history, rather than concentrating on European history or the Holocaust.

On ABC, Mamdani described “Hidden Voices” as “an existing curriculum. It just hasn’t actually been implemented.”

But as of this school year, the curriculum is already available to all New York City public school teachers for optional use, after being piloted in five districts last year. Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to questions from the Forward about how his proposal would differ from current policy or whether he was calling for the curriculum to be mandated.

What else does the curriculum teach about Jewish history?

The curriculum includes profiles of Jewish figures from colonial America through the Industrial Age, a glossary of key terms, and a map of New York City marking sites significant to Jewish American history — including the Forward’s former office at 173 East Broadway.

Among the featured figures: Asser Levy, one of the first Jewish settlers of what was then New Amsterdam; Harry Lender, who pioneered the idea of freezing bagels; Ayn Rand, the political philosopher who championed unfettered capitalism; and Rose Schneiderman, a feminist labor union leader.

By spotlighting Jews from a range of backgrounds and beliefs — yes, Ayn Rand and a labor organizer are in the same lineup — the curriculum aims to challenge stereotypes about what it means to be a “New York Jew.”

The course of study also intends to offer a more positive portrait of Jewish identity, rather than learning about Judaism through the lens of victimization. While the curriculum does not ignore antisemitism, it seeks to include examples of “perseverance, empowerment, and joy,” the curriculum says.

A second “Hidden Voices” curriculum on Jewish Americans is expected to be released this spring.

The post Mamdani opposes Zionism, but wants New York public schools to teach about it appeared first on The Forward.