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Jews alone can’t help Cuomo pull off an upset – but they may be fueling his momentum
Andrew Cuomo is entering the final stretch of the New York City mayoral race with high expectations. After a bitter defeat in the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani in June, the political scion and former governor is betting that a different and more motivated electorate will give him a second chance.
Cuomo, who is running in the general election as an independent, is buoyed by signs that the city’s older, more moderate voters, and Jewish voters, are turning out in greater numbers than the progressive, younger bloc that powered Mamdani’s primary victory.
Early voting data show a notable surge in turnout from heavily Jewish and Black neighborhoods during the first few days, a shift that could narrow the gap in a race that polls show is tightening.
For Cuomo, that’s a reason for optimism. “I’m working 24/7, and there’s much more information out there now about Mamdani,” he said in a recent interview. “And the more they know, the more frightened they are.”
Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled New York’s Jewish community — the largest outside of Israel — despite an increased effort to court them.
The growing awareness of Mamdani’s rhetoric and positions has sparked voter registration drives across Brooklyn’s Orthodox community, early voting mobilization efforts, and an unprecedented wave of prominent rabbis publicly urging support for Cuomo as the only viable candidate to defeat Mamdani. Some Orthodox voting blocs, who supported Cuomo in the primary and were influential in Eric Adams’ victory in 2021, have reissued their endorsements in recent days.
Dov Hikind, a former Democratic assemblyman who became a Republican and initially backed Curtis Sliwa before switching his support to Cuomo earlier this week, said the current level of engagement in the community rivals the intense voter turnout of 1993, when Rudy Giuliani defeated incumbent Mayor David Dinkins by a little more than 40,000 votes. Dinkins was accused of restraining the police and allowing rioters to harm the Jewish community during the 1991 riots in Crown Heights. Exit polls showed that Giuliani received 67% of the Jewish vote, including nearly 100% in Orthodox neighborhoods.
“I have never seen anything like it, never in my life,” Hikind said. “People are truly concerned about Mamdani getting elected.”
Still, the math is daunting. Mamdani continues to hold a double-digit lead over Cuomo, while Sliwa has vowed to remain in the race despite Republican pleas for him to step aside.
Jews make up an estimated 10% of the general election electorate, and their strong backing for Cuomo in the primary was too little to overcome the city’s shifting political landscape. More than a third of Jewish voters support Mamdani, according to recent polls, and several liberal Jewish election officials are backing him.
“I think our community can help to make a difference and to stop the normalization of casual antisemitism in New York’s political environment,” said Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel political organization. A post-primary survey sponsored by the group found that 58% of Jewish voters believe Mamdani’s leadership would make the city less safe for Jews.
To pull off an upset, Cuomo will need not only strong margins in Jewish and Black precincts but also undecided moderates to rally around him, accompanied by a diminished youth turnout. Voters over 55 accounted for more than half of those who cast ballots during the first two days of early voting, while youth turnout was notably lower.
What Jewish leaders are saying
Mamdani’s victory in June marked a watershed moment in New York politics — the first time a self-described democratic socialist and outspoken critic of Israel became the Democratic Party’s nominee and the favorite to govern the city. Some Jewish leaders gave the 33-year-old candidate a chance to reach out and clarify his past statements.
Professor Ester Fuchs, director of the urban and social policy program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, said Mamdani had an opportunity “to demonstrate that Muslims and Jews can work together constructively to make our city a better place for everyone.” Fuchs, who worked with the Dinkins and in the Michael Bloomberg administration, said after the primary that Mamdani would first need to build trust with the Jewish community. “He needs to demonstrate and he needs to make clear that he understands how we need to protect every community in the city,” she said.
While he did outline his plan to fight antisemitism and commit to protecting Jews in private meetings with rabbis and Jewish political leaders, the Democratic nominee didn’t do much to assuage those concerns.
He faced scrutiny for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada;” holding back from celebrating the ceasefire in Gaza — which he had called for since the start of the war — and the release of the last living hostages; repeating his pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city; and saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He is the first major party nominee to pledge to publicly back the movement to boycott Israel as mayor. On Tuesday, Mamdani declined to say whether he stands by comments made in a newly surfaced 2023 video in which he said that the New York Police Department’s boots are “laced by the IDF.” A recent poll showed that 75% of Jewish voters hold an unfavorable view of Mamdani.
Forman said Mamdani had a chance to sway opinion about him after his victory by toning down the rhetoric and walking back some of his statements. She said that those people “who were resolved to just hang their heads after the primary have started to hold their heads up a little higher” in recent weeks and go public with their opposition, as a reaction to the idea that New York City could elect a mayor who is not very supportive of the Jewish community writ large.
That shift led to a split among rabbis, many breaking tradition to issue political endorsements. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue openly urged congregants to back Cuomo, calling Mamdani a threat to Jewish security. Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Manhattan’s Kehilath Jeshurun wrote in an open letter that Mamdani “represents a genuine threat to our city and way of life.” And more than 1,100 rabbis from across the nation have signed a statement opposing Mamdani.
Meanwhile, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue reaffirmed her congregation’s stance against endorsements. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism and head of the largest Jewish movement in the U.S., wrote that crossing the line into electioneering is the wrong approach. “Keeping partisan politics out of our politically diverse congregations feels more essential than ever in today’s polarized climate,” he said.
Cuomo backed out Tuesday, at the last minute, from speaking to 210 members of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, in a town hall series for the mayoral candidates, which Mamdani addressed earlier this month.
Hikind, who caused an uproar by wearing blackface for Purim in 2013, didn’t mince words about what’s at stake for Jewish voters in this election. “Look, Mamdani wins, Hamas in Gaza will celebrate because it will be their victory,” Hikind said. ”He’s one of their boys. I am not saying he indulged in terror. But they will celebrate, no question. Our enemies all over the world will see this as a great victory.”
Mamdani accused his opponents of targeting him because he’s the first Muslim favored to become mayor of New York. His campaign did not provide details about its outreach to Jewish voters despite multiple requests. Several progressive Jewish groups — The Jewish Vote, affiliated with Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, Bend the Arc and Jewish Voice for Peace Action — are actively campaigning for Mamdani.
On Tuesday, Mamdani posted a video with famed Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin and his wife, actress Kathryn Grody, urging voters to elect “this extraordinary human being who’s going to lead our city.”
Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of the liberal New York Jewish Agenda, said the Jewish community is very diverse in its attitude towards Mamdani. “I think there are some Jewish New Yorkers for whom total agreement on Israel is required in their mayor,” she said. “And there are many Jewish New Yorkers who acknowledge that they don’t agree with him on Israel, and that’s not a barrier to voting for someone in a municipal election in the way that it may be for Congress or for president.”
Whether or not Jews will be the tipping point, the surge in turnout could definitely help fuel Cuomo’s comeback, Forman said. “I’d like to be optimistic and say the turnout that we’re seeing right now will continue through the end of the election, and this is going to be a very close election,” she said.
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Cameron Kasky, Jewish Parkland shooting survivor, is running for Congress on platform to ‘stop funding genocide’
(JTA) — Cameron Kasky, the 25-year-old Jewish activist and school shooting survivor, has entered the race to represent one of the United States’ most Jewish congressional districts — on a platform that includes stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Tuesday for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.
The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”
While Kasky’s anti-Trump positions are likely to go over well with the district’s largely liberal populace, his stance that Israel is committing a genocide — and the apparent centrality of that stance to his campaign — could be an issue for constituents. The district includes the Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan, where many voters sided with the pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the city’s recent mayoral election, as well as Midtown Manhattan.
Kasky’s messaging may, however, speak more to young voters in the district. A New York Times/Siena poll from September found that 66% of New York City voters ages 18 to 29 found that Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, “best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” among the mayoral candidates.
A democratic socialist, Kasky was a vocal supporter of Mamdani throughout the mayoral election — and an aggressive critic of fellow Democrats who objected to the mayoral candidate’s anti-Israel stances.
“‘Vote blue no matter who unless it’s a Muslim who criticizes Israel’s extremist far right nationalist government’ is not ‘vote blue no matter who,’” he wrote in one tweet.
In another, he wrote that Democrats who refused to endorse him after the primary should “go get a consulting gig and stop disrespecting your own voter base.”
Kasky had teased entering the crowded race for months, ever since Rep. Jerry Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, announced he would not be running for reelection.
In that time, Kasky has also weighed in on the viability of Micah Lasher, the Jewish state Assembly member and former Nadler aide who launched his own campaign for the seat earlier in the fall.
Lasher is unable to “fight fascism” because of his “genocide denial and free speech attacks on students,” Kasky wrote, with a screenshot of a Lasher tweet from Oct. 28, 2023, that criticized what Lasher called the “awful use of the word ‘genocide’ by some westerners to describe Israel’s actions.” (As the war in Gaza neared its two-year mark this summer, a poll found that half of Americans believed Israel had committed genocide, a claim that Israel and the United States both reject.)
Kasky also reposted a poll according to which Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally, would beat the moderate congressman Dan Goldman, who is Jewish and withheld an endorsement due to “some of the rhetoric coming from Mamdani.”
“Needless to say, I am looking forward to working with Brad Lander,” Kasky wrote.
Kasky is the co-host of the “For You Podcast” with Tim Miller, which attempts to “break down the politics of the TikTok generation,” for The Bulwark, a center-right, anti-Trump media company.
One of Kasky’s podcast guests over the summer is now his opponent: Jack Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, who is the grandson of President John F. Kennedy and has said he is “at least 100% half Jewish,” announced his own candidacy for the 12th Congressional District last week.
Kasky remarked on their podcast that many women in his life have crushes on Schlossberg — and Schlossberg replied that the two men have a similar appeal.
“I always say, when you go unhinged politics Jew, it’s hard to go back,” Kasky said.
Kasky was thrust into the national spotlight as a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Together with other survivors, he led a march in Washington and spurred a national movement that is seen as crucial to the 2022 passage of the most significant federal gun control legislation in decades.
Kasky, a junior at the time of the shooting, is credited with having selecting the name and hashtag #NeverAgain — which has long been linked to Holocaust commemoration — for the student-led gun control campaign. (Another co-founder of Never Again MSD is David Hogg, who recently stepped down as the youngest-ever vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.)
Before the shooting, Kasky said he played Motel in a school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The quality of his performance was proof, he joked, that he was not a paid actor in the protests, as some conspiracy theorists accused.
Kasky attended Hebrew school growing up, which he referenced when speaking on MSNBC about the “No Kings” protests against Trump.
“This kind of reminded me of my education growing up — when you go to Hebrew school, you learn about fascism a little bit younger than the other kids,” he said. “And you find yourself asking, in the face of authoritarianism, in the face of seeing a genocide happen before the entire world, what would I do? How would I react?”
He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he later dropped out, and lives in the 12th Congressional District that’s been described as a “crown jewel” of New York politics.
Now, Kasky is running on a progressive agenda that emphasizes fighting Trump and stopping U.S. military aid for Israel, referring to the country’s actions in Gaza in no uncertain terms as a “genocide” — a response which he says has been informed in part by his Jewish identity.
“I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” he wrote. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I’m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”
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Democrats urge Senate to oppose Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy ahead of confirmation hearing
(JTA) — On the eve of a long-delayed Senate confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy, a group of House Democrats is urging senators to reject the nomination of Yehuda Kaploun, arguing that he lacks the judgment and moral authority the post requires.
In a letter obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and sent Tuesday to Sen. Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, its top Democrat, the lawmakers call Kaploun’s nomination “partisan and controversial” and say his “comments and actions demonstrate a clear unfitness for this post.”
A total of 18 House Democrats signed the letter, including several Jewish lawmakers such as Jerrold Nadler, Jamie Raskin, Jan Schakowsky, Becca Balint and Steve Cohen.
The intervention is atypical: House members almost never publicly oppose sub-cabinet nominees, a category generally considered routine Senate business.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Kaploun’s nomination on Wednesday morning.
Trump tapped Kaploun in April to serve as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role focused on antisemitism abroad. The Senate did not move for months to schedule a hearing, leaving the position vacant even as administration officials warned about a spike in antisemitism.
Kaploun, a Hasidic rabbi, Miami-based businessman and longtime political operative close to Trump, would be the first Hasidic Jew to serve in the role if confirmed. In a May profile, JTA detailed how he rose from a Brooklyn yeshiva student and community activist affiliated with the Chabad movement to a prominent figure in Republican politics and a visible surrogate in Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The Democratic letter focuses first on Kaploun’s rhetoric about Trump’s political opponents. It cites a comment in which Kaploun said that after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, “Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists,” calling the statement “absurd, insulting, and malicious.” The lawmakers argue that the remark maligns Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee who condemned the attacks and raises questions about his ability to work across party lines.
In addition, the Democrats point to an event Kaploun organized during the 2024 campaign at which Trump said that if he were to lose the election, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” and spoke of a “Democrat curse” on Jews who vote for the party. The letter describes those remarks as antisemitic scapegoating and says Kaploun’s failure to publicly condemn them — or what the letter calls the administration’s hiring of “antisemites and Christian Nationalists” — should be a central topic of Wednesday’s hearing.
The lawmakers also cite JTA’s earlier reporting on dueling lawsuits in Miami-Dade County involving Kaploun and another member of his synagogue, which alleged threats and an extramarital affair. Court records show that judges issued restraining orders on both sides and that the case was settled in April, days before Trump announced the nomination. Kaploun has denied having an affair and has said, through an attorney, that he was drawn into a marital dispute that has now been resolved.
The letter closes by turning Kaploun’s own past standard for nominees back on him, quoting a 1993 submission he made to the Senate, in which he argued that nominees must be judged on “honor,” “fidelity to principle” and respect for civil rights. “By his own standards, Mr. Kaploun fails,” the lawmakers write, urging senators to vote no.
Their intervention comes as a broad coalition of Jewish organizations has pressed the Senate to move quickly to confirm an antisemitism envoy and a parallel ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. In an August letter led by the Jewish Federations of North America, groups from across the Jewish communal spectrum urged Senate leaders to “swiftly” fill both roles, warning that “we dare not delay in filling these critical positions.”
Kaploun has previously said he is refraining from interviews until after his confirmation process, but he has publicly argued for the importance of rising above partisanship. In a May op-ed published by JTA and co-authored with the previous two antisemitism envoys, Elan Carr and Deborah Lipstadt, Kaploun wrote that “the fight against this terrible scourge… must be bipartisan and non-political.”
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Maduro Accuses Zionists of Trying to Deliver Venezuela to ‘Devils’ as US Threatens Terror Designation
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a march amid the disputed presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Zionists of trying to hand his country over to “devils,” as the United States ramped up military pressure and opposition leaders continued to voice support for action against his regime.
“There are those who want to hand this country over to the devils – you know who, right? The far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils,” Maduro said on Saturday during a speech to local pro-government grassroots organizations.
“Who will prevail? The people of [King] David, the people of God, the people of [Simón] Bolívar, or the imperialist demons?” he continued. “We are the people of David against the Goliaths that we have already defeated in history. If God wills it, we will face them.”
| Nicolás Maduro: “Algunos quieren entregar este país a los demonios; ya saben quiénes son: la facción sionista de ultraderecha”.
pic.twitter.com/i7IJ5W0kOs— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) November 16, 2025
The Venezuelan leader has a long history of blaming the Jewish state and Jewish communities for the country’s problems, even as opposition leaders continue to publicly voice support for Israel and denounce his regime.
Last year, Maduro blamed “international Zionism” for the large-scale anti-government protests that erupted across the country following the presidential elections, in which he claimed victory amid widespread claims of fraud.
He also called the Argentinian government “Nazi and Zionist” earlier this year, amid an ongoing dispute over the arrest of an Argentine military officer in Venezuela.
Maduro broke diplomatic relations with Argentina after President Javier Milei refused to recognize his reelection in July.
During his Saturday speech, the Venezuelan leader insisted that the country is a Christian nation and questioned why Americans would want to kill Christians, as he urged Washington to refrain from military escalation amid a US buildup in the Caribbean and strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels.
“I place at the forefront of this battle our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom our homeland has been entrusted, the only king between heaven and Earth, Jesus of Nazareth, the young child and Palestinian martyr, Jesus of Nazareth,” Maduro said.
“I place Jesus of Nazareth as commander-in-chief of the battle for peace and the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people,” he continued.
He also tried to appeal to the American people, urging them to say “no” to war and “yes” to peace.
Maduro’s latest remarks came just before the Trump administration on Sunday announced the decision to designate the Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading, as a foreign terrorist organization. The designation could open the door to strikes on Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela.
“Based in Venezuela, the Cartel de los Soles is headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary,” the US State Department said in a statement, noting the designation will take effect next week, on Nov. 24.
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government. Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated [foreign terrorist organizations] including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,” the statement continued. “The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.”
Congress has seven days to review the decision after being notified, and “in the absence of congressional action to block the designation,” it will take effect, according to the State Department.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that, while he doesn’t believe the administration needs congressional authorization for potential military strikes inside Venezuela, he would like to keep lawmakers informed.
“We like to keep Congress involved. I mean, we’re stopping drug dealers and drugs from coming into our country,” he said. “We don’t have to get their approval. But I think letting them know is good.”
In recent weeks, Trump has ordered at least 21 strikes on boats believed to be carrying narcotics and has built up thousands of troops in the region.
Last month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force, saying it was established “to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.”