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Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum joins Mamdani rally with progressive leaders in Queens
This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, our daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 8 days to the election.
A rally in Queens
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Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, a longtime advocate of LGBTQ rights and anti-Trump activist, campaigned with Zohran Mamdani for the first time at a huge rally on Sunday.
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Mamdani also stood with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a trifecta of the country’s Muslim, Jewish and Christian progressive stars — at the Queens Forest Hills Stadium, where nearly all 13,000 seats were filled.
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The generational torch of democratic socialism was on show, with 34-year-old Mamdani crediting 84-year-old Sanders for his meteoric rise. He told the crowd, “I stand before you tonight only because the senator dared to stand alone for so long. I speak the language of democratic socialism only because he spoke it first.”
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Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez also demonstrated a united progressive front around Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian platform, which has been as core to his campaign as affordability.
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“They want us to think we are crazy,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “We are sane to demand affordable and decent housing, a decent wage, the right to health care, that we pay to care for our people instead of the flattening of Palestinians and oppressed people abroad.”
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Gov. Kathy Hochul also appeared in her first time campaigning with Mamdani since she endorsed him in September, showing the support Mamdani has amassed among moderate Democratic leaders.
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Hochul was heckled with a “tax the rich” chant, referencing a key proposal of Mamdani’s that Hochul has opposed. Mamdani joined her on stage and clasped her hand to throw their arms up together, softening the crowd’s reaction.
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Kleinbaum, who retired from the LGBTQ synagogue Congregation Beth Simchat Torah last year, admitted in her speech, “I don’t agree with our leader Zohran Mamdani in everything that he says,” an apparent reference to Mamdani’s pointed rhetoric about Israel. She added, “I don’t agree with anyone on everything.”
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Kleinbaum also said, “One thing I know for sure: that Muslims and Jews must work together for a shared future of all of us, where the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis have a future of shared security, freedom, dignity and justice.” She said she strongly rejected attacks on Mamdani’s faith from his critics and opponents. (Kleinbaum’s wife, Randi Weingarten, helms the American Federation of Teachers, the union whose New York chapter endorsed Mamdani, to some Jewish educators’ chagrin.)
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Brad Lander, who ran against Mamdani in the primary and now campaigns with him, also spoke about a shared future for Israelis and Palestinians and Jews and Muslims in New York City. Citing his own Jewish values, Lander also said that “10s of 1000s of Jewish New Yorkers” were supporting Mamdani and that he was committed to all Jews’ safety.
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“On primary night, Zohran made a commitment to reach out to people who disagree with him, and since then, I have seen him keep that promise in dozens of meetings with rabbis and Jewish leaders, in house parties, in synagogues, at town halls, at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services,” Lander said.
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Jewish comedian Sarah Sherman, who has parodied Islamophobic Mamdani critics on SNL, emceed the event. She targeted Cuomo, for whom Hochul was a deputy, in her jokes, saying, “Imagine how bad you have to be if all your former coworkers get together to complain about you to a stadium full of people?”
A late endorsement and a reversal
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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from Brooklyn, gave Mamdani a last-minute endorsement on Friday.
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Jeffries, like Hochul and other moderate Democratic leaders who have lined up behind Mamdani, acknowledged “areas of principled disagreement” with the candidate in a statement to The New York Times.
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Among those is his longstanding pro-Israel stance, including close ties with the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
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Jeffries cited Mamdani’s pledge to invite Jewish police commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on along with conversations about protecting Jewish New Yorkers in his decision.
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“Assemblyman Mamdani has promised to focus on keeping every New Yorker safe, including the Jewish community that has confronted a startling rise in antisemitic incidents as well as Black and Latino neighborhoods that have battled deadly gun violence for years,” said Jeffries.
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Meanwhile, Dov Hikind — one of Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa’s most ardent Jewish supporters and an impassioned Cuomo critic — switched his endorsement to Cuomo on Saturday.
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“Four months ago, I endorsed Curtis Sliwa for mayor,” Hikind said in a video. “But today I am asking you, pleading with you, to vote for Andrew Cuomo. Here’s why: New York City is in a critical moment. If Mamdani wins, the future of our city is on the line.”
Early voting surges
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About 164,000 New Yorkers went to the polls this weekend for the first two days of early voting. That turnout is close to the entire early voting count from 2021.
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The early record-breaking turnout represents voters mobilizing both for and against Mamdani, according to The City. He has appealed aggressively to new voters, while his democratic socialist platform and views on Israel have animated many moderate, conservative and Jewish voters to vote for Cuomo.
Pushing for Jewish voters
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Cuomo is centering his pitch to Jewish New Yorkers in the last days of the campaign. On Sunday, he stumped at a “Stand With Israel” rally in Kew Gardens Hills.
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“New York is not New York without the Jewish community,” said Cuomo, before going on to say he would best address affordable housing, public safety and boosting business in New York City.
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The event was hosted by the Bukharian Action Council. Queens is home to some 70,000 Bukharian Jews, who hail from Central Asia. The crowd chanted messages including, “We will not be erased” and “We will stand for our Jewish community.”
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On Friday, Cuomo also met with Orthodox leaders in Flatbush and won an endorsement from the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition.
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Meanwhile on the Upper West Side, left-wing Jewish groups including Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and Bend the Arc gathered to canvas for Mamdani over the weekend.
Islamophobia takes the stage
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Mamdani posted a speech decrying attacks on his Muslim identity on Friday in a video that has amassed over 22 million views.
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He argued that Islamophobia is not treated with the same condemnation as other forms of hatred. “For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate acceptable in this city today,” he said. “Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable.”
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Cuomo accused Mamdani of “theatrics” in his own press conference. “Today, he’s playing the victim, but in reality he is the offender. What he has done has so offended the Jewish community in this city,” said Cuomo, according to Politico.
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Vice President JD Vance attacked Mamdani for an emotional recounting of the way his family was affected by Islamophobia, including an aunt who “stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.” Vance said on X, “According to Zohran the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks.”
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The post Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum joins Mamdani rally with progressive leaders in Queens appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lebanon Plans UN Complaint Against Israel Over Border Wall
A UN vehicle drives near a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border which, according to the Lebanese presidency, extends beyond the “Blue Line”, a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as seen from northern Israel, November 16, 2025. REUTERS/Shir Torem
Lebanon will file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border that extends beyond the “Blue Line,” the Lebanese presidency said on Saturday.
The Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said on Friday the wall has made more than 4,000 square meters (nearly an acre) of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the local population.
The Lebanese presidency echoed his remarks, saying in a statement that Israel’s ongoing construction constituted “a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and an infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Dujarric said the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had requested that the wall be removed.
An Israeli military spokesperson denied on Friday that the wall crossed the Blue Line.
“The wall is part of a broader IDF plan whose construction began in 2022,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learned from it, the IDF has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border.”
UNIFIL, established in 1978, operates between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
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Iran Says US Is Not Ready for ‘Equal and Fair’ Nuclear Talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Washington’s current approach toward Tehran does not indicate any readiness for “equal and fair negotiations,” Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump hinted last week at potential discussions.
Following Israel’s attack on Iran in June, which was joined by U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, attempts at renewing dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program have failed.
The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran and Washington underwent five rounds of indirect nuclear talks prior to the 12-days-war, but faced obstacles such as the issue of domestic uranium enrichment, which the U.S. wants Iran to forego.
“The U.S. cannot expect to gain what it couldn’t in war through negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi said during a Tehran conference named “international law under assault.”
“Iran will always be prepared to engage in diplomacy, but not negotiations meant for dictation,” he added.
During the same conference, deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh accused Washington of pursuing its wartime goals with “negotiations as a show.”
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Israeli Government Decides ‘Independent’ Commission to Investigate Oct. 7 Failures
The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli government has approved the creation of an “independent” commission of inquiry to examine the failures that enabled the Hamas assault of October 7, 2023.
However, in a move sharply criticized by the opposition and contrary to the recommendation of the Supreme Court, the panel will not be a formal state commission of inquiry. Instead, its mandate, authorities, and scope will be determined directly by government ministers.
According to the decision, the commission will receive full investigative powers and must be composed in a way that ensures “the broadest possible public trust.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a special ministerial committee tasked with defining what the inquiry may investigate, the time periods to be reviewed, and the authority it will receive. The committee has 45 days to deliver its recommendations.
For the past year, the government has repeatedly resisted calls to establish a state commission, arguing at first that such a body could not operate during wartime. Later, some ministers accused Supreme Court President Isaac Amit of being incapable of appointing an impartial chairperson.
But on October 15, the High Court of Justice ruled that there was “no substantive argument” against forming a state commission, giving the government 30 days to respond.
Netanyahu maintains that responsibility for the October 7 failures lies primarily with Israel’s security agencies rather than with political leaders.
His critics accuse him of creating a weaker, government-controlled inquiry designed to limit scrutiny of his decisions, undermining the prospect of full accountability for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.