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In the Mamdani-Cuomo race, why should I choose safety as a Jew over safety as a woman?
When we talk about Jewish safety, whose safety, exactly, are we talking about?
I found myself mulling that question after Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, of Manhattan’s Park Avenue Synagogue, recently came out against Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Instead, Cosgrove encouraged his congregants to support former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He said he was moved to take that public stance out of concern for Jewish safety and the Jewish future.
“It’s not my style to endorse any candidate. But as a rabbi, when there’s a threat to the Jewish community, I believe it’s my responsibility to call that out,” Cosgrove told Haaretz in a follow-up interview.
Cosgrove was articulating one understanding of Jewish safety — an understanding contingent on politicians voicing support for Israel. He has been far from alone in the run-up to this election, for which early voting is already underway.
The American Jewish Committee expressed “alarm” at Mamdani’s charge that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, and his refusal to say he supports the existence of Israel as a specifically Jewish state, among other positions. (Mamdani has said he does not support any state’s right to a racial or religious hierarchy.) The group urged Mamdani to better consider the concerns of the Jewish community, and “change course.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, has attacked Mamdani as being insufficiently committed to Jews and Jewish safety. More than 1,000 rabbis across the country signed a letter, citing Cosgrove’s speech, that denounces Mamdani and the political normalization of anti-Zionism.
But there’s an understanding of Jewish safety missing from that viewpoint — one that largely impacts Jewish women.
Cuomo resigned as governor after being accused of sexually harassing multiple women — 13, per the Department of Justice — while in office. He was accused, in one case, of attempted retaliation; in another, he sought the gynecological records of one of his accusers.
Why is his alleged behavior not also seen as a threat?
I don’t live in New York City. I can’t vote in the mayoral election. But the failure of so many Jewish leaders to meaningfully engage with what Cuomo’s election might mean for women has deeply alarmed me.
I do not know how to be just Jewish or just a woman. I only know how to be a Jewish woman. And the idea that I, or any woman, has to pretend that the normalization of sexual harassment in politics is somehow irrelevant to our day-to-day safety — because our commitment to Jewish peoplehood comes first — seems to me to be an extremely limited understanding of Jewish safety. And, for that matter, of Jewish peoplehood.
For many Jewish women, we cannot talk about threats to our safety and dignity, and the importance of preserving our ability to move through the world without fear — all subjects rightly brought up when we speak of Jewish safety — and not talk about sexual harassment. That harassment is wrapped up in how we experience antisemitism: Antisemitic abuse toward women often includes sexist language. For example, in response to my writing as a Jewish woman weighing in on Jewish politics, I have been told more than once that I deserve to be sexually assaulted.
And sexual harassment has been a serious issue in explicitly Jewish spaces. For just two examples: Leading Jewish sociologist Stephen M. Cohen was accused of sexual harassment and forcible touching by multiple women in 2018. Leading Jewish philanthropist Micheal Steinhardt was accused of a pattern of sexual harassment the following year. More generally, a 2023 poll found that 35 percent of women in the US have been sexually harassed or abused in the workplace. 81% of women nationwide report experiencing sexual harassment at some point in their lives; it stands to reason that, for Jews, that statistic is likely similarly, shockingly high.
There is a meaningful risk that the election of a mayor with a record like Cuomo’s would make women feel less secure reporting harassment to those in power. It’s also possible his election would make women more likely to experience harassment from those who might see his victory as an opening to resume patterns of behavior briefly made taboo by the #MeToo movement. To avoid seriously contemplating those prospects when considering which mayoral candidates might endanger the wellbeing of New York City’s Jews is to treat the specific safety of Jewish women, and other Jewish victims and survivors of sexual harassment and assault, as secondary.
I know that not every Jewish woman will agree with me. Many of the rabbis who signed the letter warning against Mamdani were women. I know that there will be those who say that this is irrelevant, or not a Jewish issue. I know there will be others who feel, even if they wouldn’t say so, that Jewish women should, in this instance, place concerns tied to their womanhood behind concerns tied to their Jewishness.
But I can’t untie the two. And I can’t understand why so many leaders in my community seem not to have even considered the possibility that the return to power of an accused serial sexual harasser might be relevant to Jewish safety and dignity.
It’s true that many of those who have spoken out against Mamdani have not explicitly thrown their support behind Cuomo. But as Cosgrove noted, to not support one is effectively to support the other.
And here is the broader picture of what we risk supporting by not treating sexual harassment as a real danger: We live in a country in which the president has been found liable of sexual abuse and was still reelected; two Supreme Court justices have lifetime appointments despite having been accused of sexual harassment and assault; and the Defense Secretary was accused of sexual assault and was confirmed anyway.
All of that is normal now. You can be accused, credibly and repeatedly, of sexual harassment or worse and still be given immense power. So, I have to ask: Isn’t that normalization a threat to the safety and dignity of the many Jews who are women? And if not: why not?
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Israeli citizen Michael Mizrahi killed in Montreal shooting
(JTA) — Michael Mizrahi, an Israeli citizen and longtime member of Montreal’s Jewish community, has been identified as the civilian killed in Monday’s shooting involving a gunman and Canadian police officers in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood.
The suspected gunman was killed during the incident, the investigation of which is ongoing. Police have not publicly released the suspect’s identity or provided details about a possible motive. They also have not confirmed who shot Mizrahi.
The Israeli Consulate in Montreal confirmed Mizrahi’s death, saying in a statement that he was an Israeli citizen and extended condolences to his family “on behalf of the people and the State of Israel.” The consulate said his family “knows all too well the horrors of terror and violence, making this tragic loss even more painful.”
Montreal police Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, was also fatally shot responding to the incident, according to police.
The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal said Benredouane died in the line of duty while protecting the public during an intervention in Côte-des-Neiges, a heavily Jewish neighborhood. He had served with the force since 2021.
A second officer, who is female, was also shot and remains in critical condition, police said.
Quebec’s Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes, the province’s police watchdog, has opened an independent investigation into the use of a firearm by a police officer in a fatal confrontation.The Quebec police watchdog group states that it is “mandated to fully investigate the facts surrounding police interventions. The BEI investigates all cases where a person, other than a police officer on duty, dies, suffers serious injury, or is injured by a firearm used by a police officer during a police intervention or while in police custody.“
A number of Canadian Jewish groups published statements assuring the Jewish community that they were not in danger. The UJA-Federation of Toronto put out two statements explaining that the Jewish community did not appear to be a target.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of Canadian Jewish Federations, also put out a statement mourning the loss of a community member.
“We mourn the tragic loss of Michael (Michel) Moshe Mizrahi z”l, a beloved member of Montreal’s Jewish community, an innocent victim of today’s events,” the group posted on X on Monday night. “Our thoughts and our deepest condolences are with his family, friends, and loved ones during this time of unimaginable pain.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote on X that he had called the Chabad Rabbi of Montreal Mendel Raskin to extend his “deepest condolences to the families of the victims, to the Jewish community of Montreal, and to all Canadians mourning this terrible loss.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Supreme Court reinstates murder conviction in Etan Patz disappearance case
(JTA) — The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a murder conviction for the man convicted of killing Etan Patz, the 6-year-old Jewish boy whose 1979 disappearance riveted the nation.
In a 6-3 vote, the justices reimposed the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, who was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Patz in 2017 and was serving a 25-year sentence until a New York federal appeals court ruled last year that he was entitled to a retrial.
The justices granted an appeal from New York prosecutors who urged them to overturn the decision last year, writing in an unsigned opinion that the lower court “exceeded its authority in holding that Hernandez is entitled to relief.”
“Today the Supreme Court agreed with the findings of multiple lower courts and upheld the trial conviction of Pedro Hernandez for the horrific murder of Etan Patz, which changed a generation of New Yorkers,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Monday. “This office has remained steadfast in its pursuit of justice for Etan and the Patz family and will continue to stand by this important conviction.”
Harvey Fishbein, a lawyer for Hernandez, told the The New York Times Monday that the Supreme Court’s order meant Hernandez would not get a new trial, adding that his team was “terribly disappointed.”
“We firmly believe that an innocent man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit,” Fishbein said.
Patz vanished in May 1979 while walking to his school bus stop in New York City for the first time. The 6-year-old became one of the first missing children whose photograph appeared on milk cartons nationwide, but despite years of searches and public appeals, he was never found.
Patz’s parents, Julie and Stan, spent decades seeking an arrest for his disappearance, helping to establish a national missing-children hotline. The anniversary of Etan’s disappearance, May 25, also became National Missing Children’s Day.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Some of Mamdani’s Jewish allies criticize his use of ‘monsters’ to describe AIPAC
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday defended his use of the word “monsters” to describe AIPAC at a rally Friday for progressive candidates, as some of his Jewish supporters expressed concern that the term may connote an antisemitic trope.
The war of words came as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is increasingly a target of the progressive movement — including in acts of attempted violence — and as progressive Jews have accused some Israeli right-wing figures of dehumanizing liberal pro-Israel lobbying groups.
“Calling AIPAC and its backers ‘monsters’ casts them as less than human, rather than as human beings who are one’s political opponents,” Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of the progressive rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, wrote in a Substack post Monday.
“I was taken aback,” Rabbi Misha Shulman, a Mamdani supporter who leads the progressive Brooklyn synagogue The New Shul, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the mayor’s comments. “I didn’t like those remarks. It was a little bit of a flag for me.”
At a press conference, Mamdani said he had been quoting Italian anti-fascist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, whose quote ending “Now is the time of monsters” the mayor had cited at the top of his speech. The rally was intended to boost the mayor’s preferred progressive candidates, including Jewish congressional candidate Brad Lander, ahead of New York’s closely watched Tuesday primaries.
“I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world,” Mamdani told a reporter who asked about the word. He continued, “My use of the term is a broad use that speaks to the untenable nature of a status quo that is quite literally starving people in this city, all in the name of sustaining something that we simply cannot defend any longer.” He did not explain how he saw AIPAC as connected to poverty in New York.
Mamdani insisted he was referring to “not solely AIPAC,” but he singled out the organization again in his Monday remarks to reporters, saying the lobbying group was backing “a status quo for immorality.”
During the rally last week, Mamdani had stated that Gramsci’s “monsters take many forms today,” including “AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s wars.” He added that AIPAC’s “goal” is “to turn us against one another.”
For some of the progressive Jews who have supported the mayor, his comments sounded alarms about the use of dehumanizing or sinister rhetoric to describe Jewish groups.
But Shulman said it was actually Mamdani’s remarks in the same speech painting AIPAC as a “dark money” group that was most alarming to him. AIPAC, a lobbying organization that also operates a political spending arm, does not conceal its donors, unlike the traditional profile of a so-called “dark money” campaign finance operation.
“For me, the question of dark money was the tougher knot,” Shulman said, calling Mamdani’s remarks a “tactical mistake.” In the context of rising antisemitism, he added, “For a left-wing leader to use that phrase, and invite traditional antisemitism into this conversation in that way, was not smart.”
Shulman is a member of Israelis For Peace, a New York-based ad-hoc group of progressive Israelis who broadly back Mamdani. While not speaking on behalf of the group, he told JTA their internal group chat lit up with debates over the appropriateness of Mamdani’s speech.
Jacobs of T’ruah said Mamdani’s remarks were part of what she described as a “disturbing trend” of recent left-wing attacks on the lobbying group, including Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner accusing his GOP opponent of being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu” because of AIPAC’s donations to her campaign.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has aspirations of higher office, also recently became the first sitting member of Congress to sign a pledge from Track AIPAC, a purported AIPAC watchdog that also targets donations from more liberal pro-Israel groups, including J Street.
Over the weekend, a cafe posted on Instagram that it had rejected a payment from liberal Jewish New York Rep. Dan Goldman, whom Lander is challenging in the primary, because the money was “probably coming from AIPAC.” (Goldman has been endorsed by both AIPAC and J Street.)
While noting that AIPAC “absolutely deserves to be criticized, sidelined, and rejected for its decades of negative influence on American foreign policy,” Jacobs wrote that such critiques should be done “without dehumanizing language, and without hinting at a grand Jewish conspiracy.”
Such pushback from Jews who have worked with Mamdani is rare. JTA reached out to representatives for several of the mayor’s most visible Jewish allies on Monday, including Lander and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who spoke at the same rally. Sanders also criticized AIPAC. Neither returned requests for comment by press time. On social media after the rally, Lander celebrated the event, calling it “a tremendous honor” to rally alongside Mamdani.
IfNotNow and Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, two Jewish activist groups that endorsed Mamdani, similarly did not respond to requests for comment by press time. A spokesperson for Rep. Jerry Nadler, the retiring liberal Jewish Democrat who had endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral bid, also did not respond by press time.
J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby that positions itself as a foil to AIPAC, declined to comment on Mamdani’s remarks. Last month, hundreds of Jewish leaders criticized Yehuda Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, after Leiter called J Street a “cancer within the Jewish community.” Nadler was among the signatories of an open letter that said Leiter “dehumanizes fellow Jews.”
Centrist Jewish groups and figures, already no fans of Mamdani, also bashed his AIPAC comments. “Referring to fellow New Yorkers as ‘monsters’ is outrageous and dangerous, and the impact of your words extends far beyond politics,” American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch wrote on X, addressing Mamdani.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat representing New Jersey, wrote, “Swap ‘AIPAC’ for ‘Jews’ and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books.”
Both posts were reposted by AIPAC, which otherwise did not comment.
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