Zohran Mamdani speaks at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park, Oct. 27, 2024. (Bingjiefu He/Wikimedia Commons)
(JTA) — Last Friday, a group of around six Orthodox rabbis called New York City Assembly member Micah Lasher for a conversation about the then-presumptive Democratic nominee in the city’s mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani.
The call centered on concerns the rabbis and their communities had with a candidate who had refused to condemn the pro-Palestinian slogan “globalize the intifada” and also supported the boycott Israel movement.
According to one of the rabbis on the call, Shaul Robinson of Lincoln Square Synagogue, the callers felt they had been heard.
“On Friday I together with many Orthodox Rabbis from the neighborhood were invited to a conference call with one of our local (Jewish) New York Assemblymen to ‘strategize’ about what to do about the Mamdani candidacy,” Robinson wrote in a Facebook post. “The politician pledged his support for our community, offered to be a sounding board and source of strength in this incredibly threatening time.”
But days after meeting with Lasher, Robinson and other rabbis on the call were taken aback to see Lasher endorse Mamdani, his fellow Assembly member, in a post on X, leading Robinson to write on Facebook that he was appalled.
“And today, this self same politician endorsed Mamdani’s candidacy. That both appalls me, and motivates me to leave no stone unturned. We aren’t going to let New York City become a year round Glastonbury style Hate-fest against the Jewish community,” Robinson wrote on June 29, not naming Lasher and referencing a British music festival where a punk rap duo led anti-Israel chants last weekend.
Robinson’s Facebook post about the call and Lasher’s endorsement reflect the anxiety surrounding Mamdani’s candidacy, which to many pro-Israel Jews and their allies represents a mainstreaming of the kind of rhetoric around Israelis and Palestinians that puts Jews in danger, or at the very least flouts years of pro-Israel consensus on the part of many city politicians. By posting about the call and his disappointment in Lasher’s endorsement, Robinson sparked a heated conversation about what a Jewish politician like Lasher owes to the worried Jews in his district, which includes the Upper West Side.
In his endorsement, Lasher wrote that “Zohran has the talent to breathe much-needed new life into City government and the personal gifts to bring New Yorkers together around a positive vision for the future,.”
Lasher also acknowledged the concerns of his Jewish constituents, adding that he would “continue to be among those urging Zohran to speak with clarity when it comes to rhetoric — including the invocation or celebration of intifada — that makes Jewish New Yorkers, or any community in our city, feel threatened.”
“As he moves into a position of citywide leadership, I hope that Zohran can come to better appreciate the deeply personal and historical importance that the survival of Israel as a Jewish state holds for Jewish New Yorkers,” wrote Lasher.
Robinson’s post garnered over 100 comments, with the majority sharing his concerns about Mamdani’s candidacy and frustration with Lasher’s endorsement, whose District 69 encompasses Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and portions of the Upper West Side and West Harlem.
Lasher replied to Robinson’s concern in a comment under the post, and included his endorsement of Mamdani.
“Your feedback was important to me, even if ultimately we may be in different places about how to proceed. This is a difficult situation for the Jewish community and we are all trying to navigate it as best we can,” wrote Lasher. Reached by JTA, Lasher said he would “let the statement I issued speak for itself.”
For another rabbi on the call Friday, the endorsement by Lasher came as less of a shock.
“Robinson obviously felt that it was very surprising,” Rabbi Adam Mintz of Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim, a Modern Orthodox community he founded on the Upper West Side, said in an interview with JTA. “I’m a rabbi. I don’t really know his politics. He met with the rabbis. He was sympathetic to the rabbis. He didn’t tell us whether he was going to endorse Mamdani or not, and he went and he endorsed Mamdani. You know — it’s politics.”
Mintz said that the reaction of the other rabbis on the call to Lasher’s endorsement was “mixed,” but despite the controversy, he said that the next step for New York rabbis was to meet with Mamdani, who has a huge advantage going into the general election.
“If it’s true that probably Mamdani is going to win, I think that we also, at the same time, need to be reaching out to Mamdani and to his people to try to make sure that we can get commitments on certain things that are not only important, but they’re vital to the Jewish community,” said Mintz.
For Mintz, key issues he hoped to press Mamdani on were funding for security for Jewish institutions in New York and the preservation of the annual Israel Day parade on Fifth Avenue.
Mintz said that while the Jewish community would feel “more comfortable” with a candidate who was pro-Israel, “there’s a distinction between being anti-Zionist and being antisemitic.”
“I think there’s a question about, what do we expect from the mayor of New York City, meaning he’s made anti-Zionist statements. But he hasn’t said bad things about the Jews. He actually seems to have good relationships with many within the Jewish community who he interacts with,” said Mintz.
Robinson, when reached by JTA, said he was planning for a family celebration this week and wouldn’t be able to comment beyond his Facebook post by press time.
Lasher, a first-term assemblyman who was endorsed by a pro-Israel PAC in his election bid last year, appears to share many of the views of liberal pro-Israel voters.
“I feel a deep, personal connection to Israel and to New York’s Jewish community, and am deeply concerned about rising anti-Semitism,” Lasher wrote in a statement to the Columbia Spectator last year. “I want a lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians, I want the hostages to be returned, I want the war to end, and I would like to see Hamas out of Gaza and Netanyahu out of the Knesset.”
Pro-Israel voters and mainstream Democratic politicians who typically court the pro-Israel vote have been parsing Mamdani’s actions and rhetoric since his upset victory in the primary. U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler was quick to endorse Mamdani, while assuring voters that he would discuss Mamdani’s Israel views with him. Nadler’s fellow Jewish pol, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, at first offered praise to Mamdani on his big win, without mentioning the Israel issue, but later through a spokesman issued a statement condemning the phrase “globalize the intifada,” saying it has “dangerous implications.”
For his part, Mamdani, who led a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine as a college student, denies that he is antisemitic. Under scrutiny over his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” the candidate addressed the concerns of Jewish voters in an emotional press conference earlier this month..
“It pains me to be called an antisemite. It pains me to be painted as if I am somehow in opposition to the very Jewish New Yorkers that I know and love and that are such a key part of the city,” Mamdani said at the time.
Many of the comments on Robinson’s Facebook posts reflected the frustration of the pro-Israel voters who follow him. “Jewish people who endorse radicals promoting Islamic terrorism and murder should be named and shamed, and completely shunned from the Jewish community,” wrote one commenter. “It’s not a joke to normalize blowing up Jewish kids in music cafes, which literally is what happened during intifada.”
“The opportunism and lack of integrity are striking but sadly not surprising these days,” wrote another. “When will the likes of Schumer, Nadler and Lander” — the Jewish mayoral candidate who cross-endorsed with Mamdani — ”realize that jumping on the illiberal bandwagon is not the path to salvaging the Democratic party?!”
Mintz was more measured in his remarks, saying that Jewish leaders like him may have no choice but to work with Mamdani should he be elected.
“We don’t want him to be anti-Zionist, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Jews are at risk, and therefore I believe that our job as rabbis is, since it looks like Mamdani will probably win, that we should be reaching out to Mamdani, to his team…and we should be making sure that the Jewish community in New York City is going to be protected,” he said.
