New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on June 24. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By Hannah Feuer
July 2, 2025
Zohran Mamdani officially became the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City on Tuesday — after a campaign where his opponents repeatedly accused him of not doing enough to support Israel and Jews.
But what has the 33-year-old Democratic socialist actually said about Jews, Israel and antisemitism? The Forward reviewed interviews, social media posts and statements made by Mamdani, spanning from his college years as co-founder of Bowdoin’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter to his current mayoral campaign.
– The BDS movement –
2014-2025
Mamdani has long supported the Boycott Divest and Sanction Movement against Israel, going back to his days as co-founder of a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College.
2014
Context: In 2014, he co-authored a piece in the student paper calling on Bowdoin to join the BDS movement.
Quote: He wrote that a boycott aims to “put pressure on Israeli institutions to end the oppressive occupation and racist policies within both Israel and occupied Palestine.”
2021
Context: During a 2021 interview with the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, Mamdani urged activists to press local political candidates on their support for BDS.
Quote: “Speaking up for Israel comes with everything you might want, and we need to show that it’s not that way anymore,” he said. “There are consequences for speaking up in favor of apartheid.”
Context: Also in 2021, Mamdani spoke at a rally in favor of BDS.
Quote: “We have elected officials who are taking paid for trips to Israel,” he said before the crowd booed. “They are going there paid for by your tax dollars! They show up to Israel day parades and they say ‘We stand in solidarity.’ We want to let them know that there are three letters that we have as an answer to what is happening in Palestine: And it’s B-D-S! B-D-S! B-D-S!”
2023
Context: In May 2023, Mamdani introduced a bill titled “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act.” The bill’s stated goal is to “prohibit not-for-profit corporations from engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Critics said the law would target Jewish organizations and nonprofits providing assistance to victims of terror.
Quote: Mamdani wrote in an email to the Forward at the time that “charities should not fund war crimes — it’s that simple. The stated U.S. foreign policy is that settlements are illegal — this bill seeks to bring New York state policy in line with that goal.”
2025
During a June PIX11 mayoral forum, Mamdani said that if elected mayor, he would discontinue a council created by Eric Adams to strengthen economic ties between the U.S. and Israel.
– The Holy Land Five –
2017
Before his political career, Mamdani released rap songs under the monikers Young Cardamom and, later, Mr. Cardamom.
Context: In one 2017 song, “Salam,” he praised the “Holy Land Five” — the heads of a former Islamic charity organization founded in the U.S. who were convicted of aiding Hamas. In 2001, the U.S. government designated the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a terrorist organization and seized its assets; some have argued that the trial was based on “hearsay” evidence.
Quote: “My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up,” Mamdani raps in the track.
– Oct. 7 attacks –
2023-2025
2023
Context: The day after the Oct. 7 attacks, Mamdani posted a statement to X that critiqued Netanyahu and made no mention of Hamas.
Quote: “I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours,” he posted. “Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path to a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
2025
Context: In an April interview with the Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh, Mamdani clarified his view, calling the Oct. 7 attacks “a horrific war crime” and condemning a rally that celebrated the attacks.
Quote: “I would say that I very clearly condemned the killing of civilians and the celebration of that killing, or any rhetoric that did so. When Politico asked me about that Oct. 8 rally, I said that it was in no way befitting of a politics that is looking to support universal human rights. And I’ve been clear in calling Oct. 7 what it was — a war crime, a horrific war crime.”
– Is Israel committing genocide? –
2023-2025
2023
Context: Mamdani has repeatedly said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Starting on Oct. 13, 2023, he posted about being “on the brink” of genocide.
Quote: “We are on the brink of a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza right now – and the manufacturing of consent for sending even more US arms to Israel. Now is the moment for all people of conscience to call for a ceasefire and no more military funding.”
2025
Context: In an April interview with the Forward, reporter Jacob Kornbluh asked Mamdani how he came to that conclusion so soon after Oct. 7.
Quote: “Genocide is not just a crime of action, it’s also a crime of intent. And what led me to make that remark was a fear based on the statements we received from a number of Israeli leaders that characterized Palestinians in language more befitting animals than people, and actions that had been taken to shut down civilian access to basic goods such as electricity, for example. That was a fear that I had, and that many other New Yorkers had.”
Context: Mamdani was asked about the language on the NY1 show Inside City Hall with Errol Louis.
Quote: “I have strived to ensure that my language is driven by fact, and what we have found is that so many experts on the term itself and on the history of the use of that term have found it to be a correct application,” he said. “And so I do not disagree that this is a highly charged issue … but I do believe it is the most accurate description of what is going on.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu –
2024-2025
2024
Context: Mamdani has pledged to arrest Netanyahu if elected mayor. The International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu — along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif — in November 2024, accusing him of war crimes. The United States is not a party to the ICC, making it highly unlikely that the mayor of New York would be able to arrest Netanyahu.
Quote: “As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said to former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in December 2024. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law.”
2025
Context: In June, he said the same thing at B’nai Jeshurun, a large synagogue in Manhattan.
Quote: “My answer is the same whether we are speaking about Vladimir Putin or Netanyahu,” he said. “I think that this should be a city that is in compliance with international law.”
– The Holocaust –
2025
Context: While Mamdani has commemorated the Holocaust on social media, he took heat for declining to co-sponsor a resolution memorializing the genocide in the state assembly in May.
Quote: “I haven’t been signing on to any resolutions that have been coming through my Assembly email this year as my focus has been on the substance of what we actually legislate on and on running for mayor,” Mamdani told reporters after Politico published a piece about him not backing this year’s resolution commemorating the Holocaust. He added that he has “condemned the Holocaust every year” and that his “views are firmly in line with that resolution.”
– Does Israel have ‘a right to exist’? –
2025
Context: Mamdani has said that Israel has a right to exist, but has dodged questions about whether that means existing as a Jewish state.
Quote: Pressed during the Democratic mayoral debate in June, Mamdani said “I believe Israel has the right to exist.”
“As a Jewish state?” the moderator asked.
“As a state with equal rights,” he replied.
Context: During a June interview with the Fox 5 show Good Day New York, Mamdani explained why he wouldn’t recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state.
Quote: “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else … Equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That’s my belief.”
– Violence against Jews –
2025
Context: On X, Mamdani condemned both the firebombing of an event in Boulder for Gaza hostages and the killing of two Israeli embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
Quote: “I’m devastated by today’s horrific attack in Boulder and condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Throwing firebombs at a peaceful event for Israeli hostages only adds fear and suffering to a world already too full of both. I am praying for the six victims and their families. As political violence grows sickeningly familiar, let us redouble our efforts to banish hate from our society.”
Quote: “I’m horrified by the deadly shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. last night. My thoughts are with the victims and their families—as well as all those who must contend with the appalling rise in antisemitic violence. We owe it to one another to confront hate with the urgency and solidarity it demands, and to ensure our Jewish neighbors can live safely and free of fear. May the memories of both victims be a blessing.”
Context: On the eve of the election primary during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Mamdani spoke about many Jews’ fears of violence.
Quote: “You know, just a few days after the horrific war crime of October 7, a friend of mine told me about how he went to his synagogue for Shabbat services, and he heard the door open behind him, and a tremor went up his spine as he turned around, not knowing who was there and what they meant for him. I spoke to a Jewish man in Williamsburg just months ago who told me that the door he left unlocked for decades is now one that he locks. And ultimately, this is because we’re seeing a crisis of antisemitism.”
– ‘Globalize the Intifada’ –
2025
Context: On The Bulwark Podcast in June, Mamdani talked about the phrase as an expression of Palestinian rights.
Quote: “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” he said. “And I think what’s difficult also is that the very word is has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic. It’s a word that means struggle.”
Context: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum responded on X, writing “Exploiting the Museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize “globalize the intifada” is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors…All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history.” The following week on The Brian Lehrer Show, Mamdani said that he doesn’t use the phrase himself.
Quote: “I was speaking about the word itself and the ways in which that word…has a variety of meanings to a variety of people,” he said. “That is not language that I use. The language that I use is that of clarity, and I do not believe it is the mayor’s position to be policing language.”
Jacob Kornbluh and JTA contributed to this report.
