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Julie Menin wants to be a bridge in the Mamdani era
Julie Menin, the newly-elected speaker of the New York City Council, understands the significance of becoming the first Jew to lead the city’s legislative body.
“We live in a day with the first Muslim mayor of New York City and now the first Jewish speaker of the Council serving at the same time,” Menin, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, said in her inaugural speech.
In a recent interview, Menin said she views it as a “historic time for the Jewish community” amid rising antisemitism and tension over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and believes it is up to her to “bridge divides, as opposed to the kind of divisiveness that we’ve seen.”
When she was officially selected as speaker – the second-most powerful government position in America’s largest city – Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, remarked, “In medical terms, the word Menin is a protein that suppresses disease. We need more Menin to stop the spread of this disease of hatred.” Potasnik, who is a veteran chaplain of the fire department and was a member of Mamdani’s transition team, called Menin a leader “who knows the way, who shows the way and who goes the way.”
Menin’s leadership and relationship with Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be tested in the coming weeks as he comes under growing scrutiny from New York’s Jewish community over his anti-Zionist worldview and revocation of executive orders tied to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests.
Mainstream Jewish leaders see Menin as a check on the mayor and a potential guardrail on his actions. A recent Honan Strategy Group poll of 848 NYC voters found that 39% want Menin to be a check on Mamdani’s agenda, while 38% want her to fully embrace it.
The Menin-Mamdani relationship faces its first test
In her first legislative move, Menin introduced last week a five-point plan to combat antisemitism that includes a bill that would ban protests around entrances and exits of houses of worship; provide$1.25 million in funding to the Museum of Jewish Heritage; and create a hotline to report antisemitic incidents. Mamdani said he broadly supports the package but expressed reservations about the proposal to establish a 100-foot buffer zone around synagogues. A City Hall spokesperson said the mayor would wait for the outcome of a legal review before taking a position.
Mamdani told the Forward on Wednesday he has yet to discuss the specifics of the bill and would veto it if he determines it’s illegal. “I wouldn’t sign any legislation that we find to be outside of the bounds of the law,” he said.
Menin, who has already appeared several times alongside Mamdani — including in a social media clip promoting new public restrooms — said that, given her career as an attorney and her experience serving in a senior role at the New York City Law Department, she would not have introduced legislation that lacks legal standing.
“I feel very confident that the bills that we are going to put forward absolutely meet that legal muster,” she said. Menin declined to say whether she would seek to pass it with a veto-proof majority to get it signed into law, but said that her private conversations with Mamdani on the matter have been productive.
“I feel we’re going to have very broad-based support in the council,” she said. “They do not infringe upon the peaceful right to protest, but they do ensure that both congregants and students can enter and exit their respective facilities without intimidation and harassment. And I look forward to continuing to have productive conversations with the mayor on this topic.”
Menin will also be talking with a powerful group of progressive members, all of whom backed her bid for speaker. The body’s progressive caucus now includes 24 members, two short of a Council majority. The Jewish Caucus, which Menin attended last week, has seven members.
The Council is expected to vote on the set of bills at next month’s meeting.
Menin said passing the plan on an “aggressive and fast timetable” is crucial. “It’s obviously very important to call out antisemitic incidents as soon as they happen,” she said. “But we need far more than words. This is real decisive action to combat antisemitism.”
Fighting antisemitism and hate
Menin said she has a record of confronting antisemitism in public life.
When she was first elected to the City Council in 2021 — after serving as the city’s census czar during the 2020 count — she devoted her first town hall meeting to the issue. The virtual forum, attended by hundreds of constituents, brought together antisemitism experts and law enforcement officials to discuss how to report and prevent hate crimes. The meeting followed two incidents in her Upper East Side district. One involved a social media post by a popular comedy club that likened COVID-19 vaccination mandates to the Holocaust. Menin’s condemnation prompted a defamation lawsuit against her, which was dismissed. The other was the discovery of a swastika stamped on a $100 bill withdrawn from an ATM by a local woman.
Menin stressed the need to build relationships with other faith communities and “take the temperature and the rhetoric down” by focusing on “our commonality of spirit, not the differences.”
When she served as chair of the Community Board 1 in the 2000s, Menin supported the Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, despite facing significant opposition and death threats. Menin mentioned in the interview a Muslim high school student in her district who formed a Muslim-Jewish club with a Jewish best friend after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel as an example of shared values.
Menin said she will continue the tradition of leading a City Council mission to Israel during her tenure, a contentious issue in recent city elections. In 2021, the Democratic Socialists of America local chapter required candidates who sought their endorsement to pledge not to travel on a sponsored trip to Israel. Her predecessor, Adrienne Adams, was the first speaker to break that tradition, in 2022, citing budget negotiations.
Favorite dish at the Shabbat table
Menin is an active member of Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in Midtown Manhattan.
Her mother, Agnes Jacobs, and grandmother survived the Holocaust hiding in a cellar in Hungary, and her grandfather was killed. They first lived in Sydney, Australia for 6 years and then settled in a rent-controlled apartment in New York City’s neighborhood of Yorkville, known as “Little Hungary.”
Her favorite dish on the Friday night dinner table is palaschinta, a Hungarian crepe, using the toppings her grandfather liked — apricot jam and walnuts, and layered with chocolate.
Her bagel choice: sesame with scallion cream cheese.
The post Julie Menin wants to be a bridge in the Mamdani era appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council
(JTA) —
For the second time this year, Iran has named a wanted suspect in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires to a top security role.
A spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Monday that Mohsen Rezaei had resigned as an adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and would assume the role of secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council. Rezaei is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Rezaei is wanted by Argentina and is subject to an Interpol Red Notice issued at Argentina’s request over his alleged role in the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Vahidi, another suspect in the AMIA case and also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, was appointed IRGC commander.
In a landmark ruling in 2024, an Argentine court held Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing, setting the stage for international legal action.
In June 2025, Argentina’s federal judiciary ordered that 10 Iranian and Lebanese suspects accused in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing be tried in absentia. Rezaei and Vahidi are among them.
The eight other suspects accused by the late AMIA special prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, are: former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan, former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian ambassador Hadi Soleimanpour, former Iranian cultural attache in Buenos Aires Mohsen Rabbani and former Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari, as well as suspected Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar.
The post Iran appoints AMIA bombing suspect to National Security Council appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races
(JTA) — A pair of Democratic primaries in Minnesota on Tuesday are among a string of high-profile battles between progressive and moderate candidates, where Israel and the pro-Israel lobby serve as key wedge issues.
The state’s highest-profile race is the U.S. Senate primary between Rep. Angie Craig, who has been endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, and Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who says she would reject AIPAC’s money and accuses Israel of committing a genocide.
The most recent data gathered in late July through early August has Craig with a 2-percentage point lead, within the 5.3% margin of error. Another poll, conducted in late July by a group supporting Flanagan, shows her with a 14-point lead. The Democratic nominee, whether it be Flanagan or Craig, is expected to win the general election in November.
The race, and the candidates’ sparring over AIPAC, comes as the lobby and Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters. Israel is also an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in neighboring Wisconsin taking place on Tuesday.
Flanagan has referred to Craig as “AIPAC’s candidate” in the Senate race, which prompted Craig to distance herself from the group’s spending during a TV debate in June.
“AIPAC has not contributed at all, the PAC, to my Senate campaign,” said Craig, whose wife, Cheryl Greene, is Jewish. “Not one penny.”
Flanagan countered that, while AIPAC itself has not donated to Craig’s campaign, it has held fundraisers for the four-term congresswoman. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Just last week in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated the moderate Rep. Haley Stevens, whose AIPAC endorsement was the frequent target of opposition attacks.
Flanagan has drawn the support of American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that aims to counter AIPAC. The group spent about $54,000 on ads boosting her candidacy, according to FEC filings.
Flanagan’s platform includes blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel — a position that all but seven Senate Democrats voted for in April — and advancing a two-state solution that “allows for a secure Israel and Palestinian self-determination.”
Craig, who also backs a two-state outcome, voted against the recent amendment proposed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie that would have halted $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel.
In a statement explaining her vote, Craig panned Netanyahu and the war in Iran, but wrote that the amendment would endanger Israelis and American troops and allies in the region. After the vote, Flanagan wrote, “A vote to send $3.3 billion of taxpayer money to fund additional weapons of war to Benjamin Netanyahu is unconscionable. Enough.”
Craig has the endorsement of a number of Democrats in Congress and the Senate, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. She is also endorsed by lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel, former Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, and Minneapolis’ Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, who rose to national prominence for his response to the deadly results of the deployment of immigrant enforcement officials in his city.
Flanagan has drawn endorsements from a swath of major progressive figures including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and outspoken pro-Palestinian Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Flanagan is also endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party affiliate, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party.
On Sunday Sanders posted on X,”There is a reason why the super PACs and billionaires are flooding Minnesota with $20 million to defeat Peggy Flanagan. Same thing as Michigan. They do not want somebody in the Senate who will stand up for the working class.”
Spending by political action committees affiliated with AIPAC has also come to the fore in the Democratic primary race for the House seat that Craig is vacating.
The most moderate of the three leading candidates is State Sen. Matt Klein, who has expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and is endorsed by DMFI. Last-minute spending by outside groups has sparked accusations that AIPAC is indirectly involved.
“AIPAC is coming after me,” said former Lakeville mayor Matt Little, one of Klein’s opponents, in a video.
Klein’s two opponents — Little and state Rep. Kaela Berg — both accuse Israel of committing a genocide, and have both speculated that AIPAC is behind some of the Klein spending.
Berg supports placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and halting weapons sales, and Little says the U.S. must end all military aid and weapons sales to the country. On the policy page of his campaign website, Little refers to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack as “an act of wanton slaughter against innocent civilians” and says that people should condemn “the anti-Semitism that followed.”
Berg is listed as “primary approved” by the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group J Street, while Little has been boosted by American Priorities, which has spent about $64,000 in his favor. He is also endorsed by the DFL and Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The latest polling in the district — conducted at the end of May by a group that favors Klein — found Little leading Klein with a 7-percentage point lead, and Berg trailing by another 3 points. 39 percent of voters were undecided, and Little and Klein were about even after voters received more information about the three candidates.
Craig has declined to endorse any of the candidates to replace her.
The post Israel and AIPAC on the ballot in the Minnesota Senate and U.S. House races appeared first on The Forward.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham and a second Republican candidate will advance to a special primary runoff in two weeks, when voters will decide which GOP candidate might take the vacant seat of her late brother Lindsey Graham.
Just over an hour after polls closed, at about 8:15 pm, the Associated Press declared that Darline Graham would advance to a runoff election, noting that “one additional candidate will also advance.” At that point Graham had secured 32.6% of the vote, with 39% of ballots counted.
Graham was up against nine fellow Republicans, with her biggest competition including U.S. House Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, who were closely vying for the second spot in the runoff at the time of the AP’s call. In South Carolina, the top contender would have needed to win a majority of votes in order to avoid the two-candidate runoff, scheduled for August 25.
In the November general election, the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in this solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s race marked the second time in two months that GOP voters came to the polls to select a Senate candidate, and now they will need to do so a third time. Longstanding Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top ally of Israel in the U.S. Senate and supporter of military action against Iran. won the original primary in June but died suddenly from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Graham, who was 71 years old, served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He was a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Budget committees and had traveled to Israel about a dozen times since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary, analysts expressed no doubt that the winner would be pro-Israel. They stressed, however, that matching Graham’s level of foreign policy experience and focus on Israel, a place he often visited, would be a formidable task.
“Whoever wins this is going to be an ally of Israel,” Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in the lead-up to the race. “The question is whether they will be the champion for Israel that Lindsey Graham was.”
A few days after Graham’s death, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to complete the late senator’s term. Despite having minimal policy experience, such as a past role on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Trump’s support and soon declared her candidacy in the full race.
While 10 candidates were running in the Tuesday primary, only about two others were considered serious competition for Graham, Norman and Fry: businessman Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford, whose governorship was plagued with scandals and who briefly ran against Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.
The post Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham wins runoff slot appeared first on The Forward.
