Many Jewish New Yorkers are hoping that Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy is an aberration and that Democrats will soon return to candidates who embrace a close alliance with Israel and express a heartfelt understanding of the relationship many American Jews feel toward the country.

That aspiration describes many of the city’s most prominent Democratic officials, from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, to Reps. Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman. Eric Adams, the outgoing mayor, also fits the bill.

For these Jews, defeating Mamdani is especially urgent because loss could hasten a return to this norm, while a victory could signal a more permanent shift.

“Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove told Park Avenue Synagogue congregants in his Shabbat sermon Saturday. “And if you play out the chess game of Democratic politics, a danger that could have much wider consequences.”

For Jews like Cosgrove, Mamdani’s political positions are the problem — they view his opposition to Zionism as antisemitic, and his efforts to reassure the Jewish community as an implicit confession that Jews would have something to worry about if he was in charge.

Other leaders, like Rabbi Rachel Timoner at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, are making a different calculation. Her synagogue hosted Mamdani for a private conversation with members, part of his Jewish outreach that has included synagogue and sukkah visits plus private meetings with clergy.

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The divergent approaches — rallying congregants against Mamdani versus engaging with the candidate — showcase two different models for handling political candidates who are hostile toward Israel.

Timoner said she owed it to her congregants to bring Mamdani to the synagogue for a conversation. “I’m hoping that he is going to listen with an open mind and an open heart to the real pain and fear and experience of the Jewish community,” she told JTA.

Cosgrove acknowledged that Mamdani was likely to win but said that was no reason to try and extend an olive branch. “I understand the pragmatic instinct,” he said. “I choose principle instead.”

I expect many more Jewish leaders will be confronting this hard decision in the years to come, because polling shows that Mamdani’s views toward Israel are starting to align with a majority of Democratic voters.

Three times more Democrats in New York City sympathize with the Palestinians over Israel (57% to 18%), while nationally 69% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel.

Sympathizing with Palestinians is not the same thing as opposing Israel’s existence, but 67% of Democrats also think Israel’s military actions in Gaza should be defined as either genocide or major war crimes akin to genocide, while only 7% considered them to be legitimate self-defense, a stance that does call Israel’s legitimacy into question.

And while many party leaders remain stalwart supporters of Israel, there is evidence some are starting to feel the heat. Sen. Cory Booker squirmed during an interview with liberal podcaster Jennifer Welch last week as she grilled him on receiving donations from AIPAC and taking a friendly photograph with Benjamin Netanyahu over the summer. “‘What in the actual f—-?” Welch asked.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, has been tagged “AIPAC Shakur” by popular radio host Charlamagne Tha God, and recently accepted an endorsement from J Street, a liberal AIPAC alternative, while other prominent Democrats are turning down AIPAC funding.

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The pressure may ease if the ceasefire holds in Gaza, but it’s hard to see the overall trends reversing without an improbable breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

That suggests the kind of red lines that Jewish leaders have long sought to maintain around Israel and antisemitism — opposing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, for example — will start to lose their power.

If more Mamdanis start running for office, will concerned Jewish leaders shift their focus from these candidates’ views on Israel to how they treat their Jewish constituents?

One of the themes I’ve found in reporting on campus antisemitism is that students are often bothered more by how some of their peers act out their anger toward Israel — often by shunning Jews who don’t completely buy into anti-Zionism — than by the anger itself.

Is there anything that candidates who oppose Israel can offer Jewish leaders and voters who support Israel, short of changing their foreign policy positions?

Mamdani has tried. In addition to his charm offensive, he has sought to reassure Jews in New York City that he will not demonize Jews he disagrees with, telling Beth Elohim members that he would not impose a litmus test around Israel at City Hall and anticipated hiring Zionists of all different political persuasions if elected.

That comment only served to provoke Cosgrove, who said Mamdani had revealed an “assumption that Jewish self-determination is an ideology to be tolerated, rather than a birthright to be respected.”

But perhaps it comforted some of those in the audience at Beth Elohim.

Of course, Mamdani is still in campaign mode. The bigger test will come if he wins. How a Mayor Mamdani would ultimately relate to the city’s Jews— and whether antisemitic incidents spike, fall or remain flat — will almost certainly inform how other rabbis and Jewish leaders react to future candidates who share his views.

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