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Why Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Zohran Mamdani is fueling antisemitism fears
Jeremy Corbyn, the former British Labour leader ousted from his party over accusations of antisemitism, joined a phone bank for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Sunday. Corbyn’s participation quickly drew backlash.
Mamdani “will ensure that the world doesn’t pass by on the other side while the terrible genocide goes on in Gaza, which has been so terrible for the Palestinian people,” Corbyn said on the Zoom call, organized by the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter.
Critics said it confirmed what they see as Mamdani’s alliances with antisemites — at a moment when the Democratic frontrunner is trying to reassure Jewish New Yorkers ahead of Tuesday’s election. Mamdani has at once struggled to earn the trust of many Jewish New Yorkers and built a broad base of Jewish support.
“Having Jeremy Corbyn — someone whose party was found to have committed unlawful acts of discrimination against Jewish people under his leadership — phone-banking for @ZohranKMamdani says everything you need to know,” Andrew Cuomo, who is running in the mayoral election as an Independent, posted to X. “New York doesn’t need politics of moral compromise. We need leadership that rejects antisemitism, extremism, and division in every form and in every corner.”
“You. Can’t. Make. It. Up.,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who has previously clashed with Mamdani over his views on Israel and whether the ADL represents the views of New York Jews.
What are the antisemitism allegations against Corbyn?
Corbyn, a British politician known for his far-left politics and pro-Palestinian activism, drew scrutiny in 2015 for referring to representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends” in the context of peace talks in 2009. He later said he regretted the phrasing.
Further controversy erupted in 2018 after reports surfaced that in 2012, Corbyn had commented approvingly on a Facebook post featuring a mural depicting caricatured Jewish bankers with hooked noses playing Monopoly. He later said he should have “looked more closely at the image” before posting his support.
That same year, Corbyn became a central figure in a debate over whether the Labour Party should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which classifies most expressions of anti-Zionism as antisemitic. Corbyn argued the definition could restrict legitimate criticism of Israel.
Corbyn introduced an amendment to clarify that “it cannot be considered racist to treat Israel like any other state or assess its conduct against the standards of international law.” That addition did not pass, and Labour adopted the IHRA definition.
Allegations of antisemitism within Labour escalated in 2019, when the Equality and Human Rights Commission found the party had committed “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination” against Jews under Corbyn’s leadership and failed to properly investigate complaints. Corbyn rejected the findings as politically motivated.
“One antisemite is one too many,” he said at the time, “but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”
The Labour Party suspended Corbyn in 2020 after those remarks. He was reinstated three weeks later after walking back those comments, saying that concerns about antisemitism were “neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated.’”
But last year, Corbyn was expelled from the Labour Party on the same basis, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer – whose wife and children are Jewish – telling Sky News he wanted to “tear antisemitism out of our party by the roots.”
On Sunday’s phone banking call, Corbyn said he was “very excited” by Mamdani’s campaign, describing the mayoral candidate as “a voice for justice around the world.”
Corbyn told volunteers he had spoken at 32 national pro-Palestinian demonstrations since October 2023 and would keep protesting “for as long as it takes to bring about justice for the Palestinian people.” That, he added, included ending arms shipments to Israel and halting the Royal Air Force’s cooperation with the Israeli military.
“So there’s so much that we can work together on,” Corbyn said.
Corbyn also said he had sent Mamdani two gifts: a book called Poetry for the Many, a poetry anthology co-authored by Corbyn; and an Arsenal shirt for the fellow soccer fan.
“I look forward to meeting Mayor Zohran, and when he comes over here, we’ll go to an Arsenal game,” Corbyn said, later adding, “I’ll be staying up very, very late on Tuesday night to hear the results.”
Mamdani, the DSA, and antisemitism
Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled Jews across the country, and he’s often had to defend himself against allegations of antisemitism for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada;” reiterating support for Palestinians in his statement on the Gaza ceasefire; vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York; and saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Mamdani has also been criticized for his affiliation with the DSA, a socialist political organizing group that describes itself as anti-Zionist and endorses the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.Mamdani has said that pro-Palestinian activism and his commitment to BDS was “the crux of the reason” why he joined DSA in 2017.
But as the DSA has taken an increasingly hard line on Israel, it has found itself at odds with even progressive politicians.
Last year, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost the DSA’s endorsement over her position on Israel. The DSA took issue with Ocasio-Cortez hosting an online panel discussion with two leading Jewish experts on antisemitism, and for voting in favor of a resolution that condemned Hamas and equated the denial of Israel’s right to exist with antisemitism.
In August, the national DSA passed a resolution that said “making statements that ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’” and “endorsing statements equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism,” would be considered an expellable offense.
The DSA’s New York City chapter, of which Mamdani is a member, faced broad condemnation for celebrating the attacks of Oct. 7 at a demonstration in Times Square on Oct. 8. Mamdani has distanced himself from that rhetoric, condemning the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as a “horrific war crime” and describing the celebration of the killing of civilians by some of the rally’s attendees as “not befitting of a movement supporting universal human rights.”
He has also sought to distance himself from aspects of the DSA’s national agenda, telling the New York Times that the group’s platform was not the same as his.
Jacob Kornbluh contributed reporting and writing.
The post Why Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Zohran Mamdani is fueling antisemitism fears appeared first on The Forward.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Targeted With Death Threat Letter After Arson Attack on Home
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has been targeted the second attack in under a week after receiving a death threat, sparking outrage and prompting local authorities to launch a full investigation.
According to the German newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN), the Brandenburg state parliament received a letter on Monday threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
State security police have examined the anonymous letter under strict safety measures, determining that a gray substance inside was harmless. Authorities are now probing the incident as part of an ongoing investigation into threats against the German official.
Ulrike Liedtke, president of the Brandenburg state parliament, condemned the latest attack on Büttner, describing the death threats and harassment as “completely unacceptable.”
“Threats and violence are not a form of political discourse, but crimes against humanity,” Liedtke said. “Andreas Büttner has our complete support and solidarity.”
A former police officer and member of the Left Party, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
On Sunday night, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking the latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
“The symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said in a statement after the incident.
“Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat,” he continued.
Hamas uses inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. The symbol, a common staple at pro-Hamas rallies, has come to represent the Palestinian terrorist group and glorify its use of violence.
In August 2024, swastikas and other symbols and threats were also spray-painted on Büttner’s personal car.
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Harvard President Blasts Scholar Activism, Calls for ‘Restoring Balance’ in Higher Ed
Harvard University President Alan Garber speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University president Alan Garber, fresh off a resounding endorsement in which the Harvard Corporation elected to keep him on the job “indefinitely,” criticized progressive faculty in a recent podcast interview for turning the university classroom into a pulpit for the airing of their personal views on contentious political issues.
Garber made the comments last week on the “Identity/Crisis Podcast,” a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank which specializes in education research.
“I think that’s where we went wrong,” Garber said, speaking to Yehuda Kurtzer. “Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, ‘This is what I believe about this issue,’ how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?”
Garber continued, saying he believes higher education, facing a popular backlash against what critics have described as political indoctrination, is now seeing a “movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom.”
He added, “What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues.”
Coming during winter recess and the Jewish and Christian holidays, Garber’s interview fell under the radar after it was first aired but has been noticed this week, with some observers pointing to it as evidence that Harvard is leading an effort to restore trust in the university even as it resists conceding to the Trump administration everything it has demanded regarding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), viewpoint diversity, and expressive activity such as protests.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Garber has spent the past two years fighting factions from within and without the university that have demanded to steer its policies and culture — from organizers of an illegal anti-Israel encampment to US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year canceled $2.26 billion in public money for Harvard after it refused to grant his wishlist of reforms for which the conservative movement has clamored for decades.
Even as Harvard tells Trump “no,” it has enacted several policies as a direct response to criticisms that the institution is too permissive of antisemitism for having allowed anti-Zionist extremism to reach the point of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. In 2025, the school agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. Harvard even shuttered a DEI office and transferred its staff to what will become, according to a previous report by The Harvard Crimson, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” The paper added that Harvard has even “worked to strip all references to DEI from its website.”
Appointed in January 2024 as interim president, Garber — who previously served in roles as Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer — rose to the top position at America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious institution at a time when the job was least desirable. At the time, Harvard was being pilloried over some of its students cheering Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and even forming gangs which mobbed Jewish students wending their way through campus; the university had suffered the embarrassment of its first Black president being outed as a serial plagiarist, a stunning disclosure which called into question its vetting procedures as well as its embrace of affirmative action; and anti-Israel activists on campus were disrupting classes and calling for others to “globalize the intifada.”
Garber has since won over the Harvard Corporation, which has refused to replace him during a moment that has been described as the most challenging in its history.
“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement issued on behalf of the body, which is the equivalent of a board of trustees. “From restoring a sense of community during a period of intense scrutiny and division to launching vital new programs on viewpoint diversity and civil discourses and instituting new actions to fight antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Holocaust Survivors Sent Care Packages to Oct. 7 Hostages for Hanukkah
The Menorah for Hanukkah on the Square 2025 in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom, Dec. 14, 2025. Photo: Matthew Chattle/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Survivors of the Holocaust spread holiday cheer this Hanukkah by delivering care packages to a group of 20 hostages whom the terrorist group Hamas recently released from captivity to fulfill the requirements of a ceasefire which suspended hostilities with Israel.
The gifts, dropped off at the Israeli consulate office in New York City, was made possible by The Blue Card, the only US-based charity organization which provides financial assistance and other services to survivors of the Holocaust. Originally founded in 1934 to assist Jews who had fled Germany to escape Hitler’s persecution of the country’s Jews, it has operated ceaselessly for nearly a century.
Over the past two years, the world has seen a revival of antisemitism unlike any since the period in which The Blue Card was founded, sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that claimed the lives over of 1,200 Israelis and stole years and even more lives from 251 more who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
Some of the hostages who survived captivity have been released in stages since Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in October, and on Monday, Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl said the organization felt it necessary to reach out to them due to their having experienced a plight that is painfully familiar to what its clients endured in Europe during the Holocaust. Pearl also discussed the Bondi Beach mass shooting, in which a father and son inspired by Islamism opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah, murdering 15 people and injuring 40 others.
“Holocaust survivors and former hostages share a uniquely painful bond shaped by survival and resilience,” Pearl said. “After witnessing a mass shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney, it felt even more urgent for our survivors to deliver these care packages now, spreading light at a moment that feels dark for the entire Jewish world. The resilience of the Holocaust survivors we assist, the former hostages, and now the survivors of the attack in Australia remind us that even in the face of hatred and violence, the Jewish people remain united.”
In a press release Blue Card said the care packages “carried profound meaning,” being filled to the brim with goods of all sorts, from blankets and water bottles to chap stick and even handwritten notes from the Holocaust survivors who sent them.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.