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Mamdani’s progressive Jewish supporters are jubilant as they gain an ally in City Hall
BROOKLYN — There were plenty of “Jews for Zohran” at Brooklyn Paramount, the recently refurbished music venue where Zohran Mamdani and his biggest supporters celebrated his mayoral election victory Tuesday night.
Present at the rally were many of the Jews who make up left-wing organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, whose endorsements and campaigning under the Jews for Zohran mantle became a driving force behind the democratic socialist’s support.
“This is an amazing night for Jews for Zohran and Jewish New Yorkers,” said Carlyn Cowen, co-chair of JFREJ’s board, in an interview. “This is an amazing night for everyone who has been fighting for our democracy, for housing, for childcare, for the entire vision of Zohran’s campaign, which is joy and love. Incredible.”
Mamdani’s long-held anti-Israel views made the 34-year-old democratic socialist a polarizing candidate for many Jews in the city, with the Jewish establishment and a significant majority of Jewish voters backing his main rival, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“There’s going to be important bridging work to do in the Jewish community … so we can move forward and everybody can feel like their interests are being looked after and they can feel safe in the city,” said Jamie Beran, CEO of the progressive Jewish organization Bend the Arc.
But healing would need to wait for another day. On Tuesday night, the mood was jubilant as eager energy erupted into an all-out dance party celebrating Mamdani’s decisive victory. News of the race being called, only about 40 minutes after polls closed, sent the at-capacity room into a frenzy. Waves of shouts and shrieks erupted. Friends hugged and cried tears of joy, some expressing disbelief despite Mamdani’s long stretch at the top of the polls.
“New York, tonight you have delivered,” Mamdani said during his victory speech. “A mandate for change. A mandate for a new kind of politics.”
For progressive Jews in the city, the change could not be starker. Suddenly, following an Eric Adams administration largely unsympathetic to their views, left-wing groups such as JVP and JFREJ will have an ally in City Hall who’s aligned with them on an array of issues including income inequality, taking on Donald Trump and pro-Palestinian advocacy.
As his Jewish supporters gushed about what parts of Mamdani’s agenda they are most keen to see enacted, most did not bring up his longstanding, unwavering support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that has put a wedge between segments of the Jewish community.
“Universal childcare, number one!” said Cowen.
“All of his campaign promises around affordability are so critical for the lives of everyone who lives in New York City,” said Beran, who also said she is “really grateful” for Mamdani’s “commitments around hate crime prevention.”
“I think the fact that he was the only candidate that had a clear and specific platform, committing to an 800% increase to hate crime prevention to protect Jews and everyone in New York, is such an important part of his platform,” Beran said.
Katie Unger, who co-founded JFREJ’s political arm, the Jewish Vote, said she was most eager to see Mamdani fight back against Trump and protect immigrants.
“After 10 months of watching our immigrant neighbors getting abandoned by our mayor, I’m so glad that on day one, we’re gonna have a mayor who stands up for an immigrant city against ICE,” Unger said. “It’s been heartbreaking and appalling, particularly as a Jew, to watch this city of immigrants abandon our immigrant neighbors, from City Hall down.”
Rabbi Moishe Indig, the Satmar Hasidic rabbi who endorsed Mamdani in a split in his community, stood out for wearing a black suit and kippah, rather than the typical blue “Jews/tenants/hot girls/etc. for Zohran” T-shirt.
“We have large families, we could use affordable housing and to have a better life, hopefully,” Indig said about his community, saying he felt “great” about Mamdani’s win.
But while Stefanie Fox — JVP’s executive director who traveled from her home in Seattle for the event — said she was “thrilled about the affordability for this city,” she also emphasized that the mayor “has a tremendous role to play in defining the way that New York’s support for Israeli occupation and apartheid happens.”
She added, “So I’m really happy to see an administration where that might be possible to move.”
In a sign that pro-Palestinian activists are already geared up to lobby a mayor inclined to agree with them, Fox mentioned JVP’s new campaign, “Break the Bonds,” which is advocating for comptroller-elect Mark Levine to follow Brad Lander’s lead in not reinvesting in Israel bonds; Levine, however, has stated his intention to invest in them.
“That’s the kind of example where even though it’s the comptroller’s decision, it’s a different conversation in this New York,” Fox said.
Mamdani’s candidacy coincided with amid surging pro-Palestinian sentiments among the broader liberal electorate, and inside the hall, evidence of the cause was on vivid display. Some attendees wore keffiyehs as they embraced in celebration. Mamdani was joined on stage by his wife, an artist who was wearing a top by a Palestinian designer, and parents, a scholar and film director who are prominent supporters of the boycott Israel movement. And outside, a group of Neturei Karta anti-Zionist Jewish protesters stood holding a sign that read, “Congratulations NYC. Zohran Mamdani 0% AIPAC Funded.”
A number of Mamdani’s backers from the political and cultural worlds were in attendance, many of whom share his strongly critical views of Israel, including actress Cynthia Nixon, streamer Hasan Piker, and Jamaal Bowman, the former congressman whose name has circulated as a possible schools chancellor for Mamdani. (Mamdani has not indicated if he has a preferred chancellor.)
Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally in city politics who cross-endorsed him ahead of the Democratic primary, was also on hand.
So was Jewish stand-up comedian and podcaster Adam Friedland, who went on a passionate rant against Israel to pro-Israel Rep. Ritchie Torres back in August.
“It’s a crap job, right?” Friedland said in an interview. “It’s really tough to be the mayor of such a big city, right? But I think he’s a genuine person. I met him and he’s kind of, like, he’s just a millennial. He likes soccer and democratic socialism.”
Mamdani did not mention Israel or Palestine during his speech, keeping his focus on New York City and the diversity of New Yorkers whom he hopes to represent as mayor.
“We will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism,” Mamdani said, drawing cheers.
As the election drew closer over the last two weeks, Jewish leaders and rabbis came out in droves to warn Jewish voters about his anti-Israel rhetoric. A letter signed by 1,100 rabbis from across the country warned of the “political normalization” of anti-Zionism, naming Mamdani.
Bend the Arc’s Beran said the election result may very well be a sign that the letter, despite its many signatures, did not achieve its intended effect.
“We’ll have to see how the actual vote shook out, but I think it’s clear that a lot of Jews saw through the fear-mongering,” she said. “I think people were able to see the complete picture of the campaign and also understand that Zohran actually cares about Jewish safety.”
An early exit poll conducted by CNN suggested that about a third of Jewish voters had cast their ballots for Mamdani, with two-thirds backing Cuomo.
Rafael Shimunov, a JFREJ member who hosts a radio show called “Beyond the Pale,” said Mamdani’s victory was proof that the tactics used by Cuomo and his mega-donors need not be successful.
“I’m feeling exhilarated and hopeful and excited about what this means for the rest of this country, every city and town in this country,” he said. “This proves tonight that even among all the attempts at dividing us, using my people, antisemitism, using the Jewish community as a wedge in the coalition — didn’t work.”
Now, Mamdani’s challenge will turn from campaigning, where he has a long track record of explosive success, to governing, which he said — slyly quoting Cuomo’s father Mario, himself a former governor — he intended to do “in prose.” He has never held an executive role.
“I don’t know if we’re going to accomplish everything, I don’t know how long it’s going to take,” said Rabbi Abby Stein, who’s closely involved with JVP and JFREJ, and was responsible for the Yiddish translations of the Mamdani campaign signs posted around Hasidic areas of Brooklyn. “But I know that we have someone who’s going to try.”
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Shots fired in Jewish neighborhood of Montreal
(JTA) — Montreal police said an alleged shooter in a neighborhood known for its large Jewish population had been “neutralized” after killing one police officer and wounding another officer and a civilian Monday.
“A suspect has been neutralized,” the official police account posted on X after advising residents Côte-des-Neiges to stay indoors. “Two police officers and one citizen have been injured. The police operation is still underway. Continue to avoid the area. Further details to follow.”
The Montreal Gazette later reported that the suspect and the civilian also were dead.
It was not clear if the intended targets were Jewish, but a Chabad emissary in the neighborhood told Ynet, an Israeli news site, that a nearby building was targeted and that he was sheltering about 100 people.
The Yeshiva World News news site posted a video of a SWAT team swarming around a home belonging to a family affiliated with Chabad, the Orthodox Jewish movement.
Côte-des-Neiges was the scene of postwar Jewish settlement as Jewish families ascending from the working to the middle class moved west from the area of St. Laurent Boulevard. The area, with treelined streets studded with duplexes and low-rise apartment buildings, had a friendly neighborhood ambience and lacked the anti-Jewish restrictions some of the wealthier enclaves maintained at the time.
There are a number of Jewish schools and synagogues in the area, including the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the oldest congregation in the country, established in 1768 and which moved to the neighborhood in 1947. The neighborhood is now the site of a large Chabad community and a number of Jewish restaurants and delis.
This is a developing story.
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Everyone was a fan of Clive Davis — even if they didn’t know it
Last September I spent about 30 seconds with Clive Davis in a crowded elevator.
I was in the Sony Building, having just seen a press screening of Richard Linklatter’s Blue Moon. The elevator was full of mostly young people — probably Sony employees — and some press. The doors pinged open and in stepped a man with two handlers and an adorable spaniel. I turned to a fellow journalist and whispered “That’s Clive Davis.”
Someone who knew Clive — enough to call him “Clive” — told him we’d just seen a movie about the creative breakup between lyricist Lorenz Hart and musical composer Richard Rodgers.
“Didn’t you play Janis Joplin for Richard Rodgers,” he asked Davis.
Davis replied with perfect comic timing: “Yes. He hated it.”
That anecdote tells us just how much Davis, the legendary music executive and producer who died Monday June 22 at the age of 94, changed the musical landscape.
Davis had been in the music business long enough to serve as a bridge figure between the Great American Songbook and the popular music of the latter half of the 20th Century. The artists he signed at CBS, and later Arista (he was ousted from the CBS/Columbia for allegedly using company money to finance his son’s bar mitzvah), are enduring icons even, in the case of Ms. Joplin, decades after their deaths.
But what hit me in the elevator was the feeling that not everyone there knew who he was. They did, of course, know the music: Pink Floyd, P!nk, Whitney Houston, Sly and the Family Stone, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith, the very authors of “Love in an Elevator.”
It’s not overstating it to say that Davis’ influence across genres and his golden ear provided the soundtrack to American life. His own life was productive until the end.
He was in the Sony building because he was Chief Creative Officer at the company. A week before his death, the streets were thumping with a New York anthem from one of his late career discoveries: Alicia Keys.
Davis’ rise could be taught in Jewish Studies courses. Born in working-class Crown Heights, he — like Barba Streisand — was a graduate of Erasmus Hall High. He made good at NYU and got his law degree at Harvard.
He rose from the legal department at Columbia to become the company’s top tastemaker. Somewhere along the way he discovered Joplin — of a polar opposite disposition and background — and went from strength to strength.
Davis’ true triumph might have been just how adept he was at navigating everything the U.S. had to offer. The musicians he promoted had little in common save for his imprimatur.
In that elevator, which delivered us without much fuss to the lobby, there may have been people whose musical tastes gravitated to rock, R&B, jam bands, easy listening, guitar instrumentals and jazz.
Whether they knew it or not, Davis shepherded something they liked into existence. His genius was in recognizing genius.
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U.S. and Iran announce direct Lebanon track without Israel
(JTA) — Following tense high-level negotiations over the weekend, mediators in Switzerland announced Monday morning that Washington and Tehran have agreed on a 60-day roadmap toward ending the war.
The joint statement released by mediating countries Qatar and Pakistan also unveiled the creation of a Lebanon deconfliction mechanism. According to the mediators, this entails a direct U.S.-Iranian track to terminate military operations in Lebanon and includes the Lebanese government but not Israel. The mediators did not explain how that would operate or resolve the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Throughout the weekend Jerusalem, which watched the talks and the announcement from the sidelines with concern, doubled down on its hardline stance against Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah.
Speaking to reporters in Switzerland Monday before returning to Washington, U.S. Vice President JD Vance clarified that Israel had the right to self-defense, but that “every other nation in the region has the right of self-defense” as well. The mechanism was to resolve direct violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Vance explained, indicating that it augmented the ongoing diplomatic work.
“We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation,” he said, adding that “there really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically around 4 p.m. yesterday.” He said that the U.S. had been in constant contact with Israel on Sunday.
Prior to Vance’s statement, the Israeli government delivered its first overt criticism of the diplomatic efforts taking place at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland.
Addressing the Jerusalem News Syndicate Conference in Jerusalem Monday, Israeli President Issac Herzog said any negotiations to end the Israel-Lebanon conflict should be done by the two countries themselves and not “by Iranian extortion.”
He added, “Tying Iran to Lebanon not only leaves Israel exposed to constant threat; it leaves the Lebanese weak and powerless, and will prevent their president and government from moving forward.”
Herzog also noted that direct talks were already taking place between Lebanon and Israel in Washington under the auspices of the State Department. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for Tuesday, which Herzog said is designed to empower the Lebanese army to be the sole military force in its country. Hezbollah and Iran are not a party to those talks.
“The disarmament of Hezbollah must be inherent to any solution in Lebanon, and Iran cannot dictate the future of Lebanon – on these fundamental points there is full agreement between Israel and Lebanon,” Herzog stated.
He also thanked President Donald Trump for his efforts on Israel’s behalf, calling him “our closest friend and ally and leader of the free world.”
The Lebanese Presidency said Monday that President Joseph Aoun had received a phone call from US Vance, senior adviser Jared Kushner and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, but did not clarify when that call occurred.
According to the Lebanese statement, the discussion focused on “consolidating the ceasefire in Lebanon, halting the Israeli military escalation, and the steps that must be taken in this regard, including the possibility of forming a cell for this purpose.”
The ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and the IDF’s presence in southern Lebanon has been a point of tension throughout the ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran. The shaky ceasefire has been in place since April 8 after Israel and the U.S. started the war on Iran at the end of February.
In early March, Iranian proxy Hezbollah joined in by attacking northern Israel. Jerusalem has maintained that the Lebanese front needs to stay separate and has continued to take aggressive retaliatory action against Hezbollah despite the U.S. imposing a separate ceasefire in Lebanon as well.
Meanwhile, Qatar and Pakistan said the U.S.-Iran memorandum included the establishment of a “High Level Committee” to oversee negotiations aimed at a roadmap “towards reaching a final deal within 60 days, laying the foundation for the immediate commencement of further technical talks” on Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions and dispute resolution. These were the first formal discussions as part of the new U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, with Vance representing Washington.
The vice president told reporters Monday that Sunday “was a very, very good day. We made a lot of good progress; we did exactly what we wanted to do,” including securing an agreement from Iran that inspectors from the International Atomic Inspection Agency be allowed back into Iran.
Negotiators also created a mechanism to ensure that the Straits of Hormuz remain open, Vance said, downplaying reports of disputes between the American and Iranian teams.
However, Iranian media reported that members of Tehran’s delegation briefly left the room during Vance’s remarks after learning that Trump was issuing threats against Iran following Iran’s announcement on Saturday that it planned to once again close the Strait of Hormuz.
Vance said it was true the Iranians had threatened to walk out, but in the end they stayed and negotiated until the early hours of the morning.
Trump told Fox News in a phone call on Sunday morning that he had spoken with Iran overnight and said that if the country closed the Strait, he would “blow the s— out of them.” Fox News also reported that Trump had said, “You won’t even make it back to your f—— country.”
Trump also posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday that unless Iran stops supporting Hezbollah, “We’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Iranian officials reportedly responded to what they termed U.S. “verbal threats,” saying that “any form of threat is considered a serious violation of the agreement.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday the talks had delivered “major progress to end [the] Lebanon War,” and added that discussions included oil exports, sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets and reconstruction plans.
On Sunday, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as it takes in order to protect the residents of the North.”
Vance on Monday said that Israel would have to withdraw, but only when it can do so safely. The Trump administration, he explained, hoped to reach a situation where both Lebanon’s territorial integrity and Israel’s security were protected, noting that Israel itself has said it doesn’t have permanent “territorial intentions” with regard to southern Lebanon.
In separate remarks at Sunday’s JNS International Policy Summit, Netanyahu said, “We have prevented Iran from carrying out a plan to annihilate us. We removed an existential danger.” He added, “We changed Israel’s security doctrine. We initiate. We attack. We surprise.”
Directly addressing the U.S.-Iran negotiations, he added, “No matter what happens in the talks, with an agreement, without an agreement, I pledge to you that Iran, as long as I am prime minister, will never have a nuclear weapon. Never.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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