Several election cycles ago, a group of wealthy Jewish donors sought my advice on which candidate to back in an upcoming election. My response was immediate. I told them that with elections, there is only one golden rule: Support both sides of the aisle. You never know who will win – and you never want to be closed out of the corridors of power.
That was then – this is now.
Zohran Mamdani’s bid to be the next mayor of New York City forced a change in the rules of election play. His win forces us, Jews and non-Jewish lovers of Israel, to reassess our needs as a global community and to focus our attention on building a new survival strategy.
The election of Mamdani is not, I fear, a one-off. His win signifies a new and ugly dawn for Jewry and of what is in store for us.
The right thing
We did the right thing. I say that with conviction and without apology. I know it to be true. With the exception of a small, peripheral group of ultra-religious Jews and a larger group of Jews embarrassed by Israel and at odds with her, Jewish leadership stood as a united front. Our own political views were pushed aside by the need to unite against a force of evil Jew-hatred.
All the exit polls from the general election show the same results. Thirty-three percent of New York City Jews – one in every three – voted for Mamdani in the mayoral election. That was down from 43% who voted for him in the Democratic primary. These numbers demonstrate a new and terrifying reality. A major swath of Jewish New Yorkers is not in step with mainstream Jewish leadership and priorities.
Albeit charismatic
More than 30% of Jewish New York voted against established Jewish traditional goals and, in so doing, embraced a diabolical albeit charismatic figure who vilifies Israel and its supporters; one who sides with evil, who sides with Hamas.
Esabalished Jewish leadership is faced with a daunting, two-pronged problem. They must find the keys that will unlock the doors to the many offices and departments of City Hall and be allowed entry.
Not as second-class citizens. Not as sore losers. As a strong and proud citizens group composed of big-time players on Wall Street, Broadway, and the outer boroughs. A powerhouse of thought leaders and big-time donors to charitable and political causes. A strong part of the backbone of this city is the people who helped build it and continue to keep its bright lights burning in the international community.
And then, New York Jewish leadership must create the blueprint to bring back those Jews who chose to leave the fold and to cast the ballots that ensured the win of a mayor who was blind to his true self. To bring back those Jews who helped elect a man who hates Israel and lovers of Israel.
Reeling Jews back
Those Jews must be reeled back to the mainstream. They are one-third of a significant minority of a community who, essentially, voted against their own interests. Their choice for mayor illustrates a colossal failure on a fundamental level. It is a failure that cannot be excused by the fact that 63% of New York Jewry voted for Andrew Cuomo, and 3% for Curtis Sliwa.
They must be re-educated that support for Mamdani, a candidate who unabashedly made his antisemitic, anti-Israel ideology a cornerstone of his platform, is simply wrong.
It won’t be easy, but it must be done – because it is the right thing to do. Just as it was the right thing for us to act as we did during the campaign season. We were right to mobilize against Zohran Mamdani, right to put our communal strength to try to defeat him. But now we must pay the price of our convictions.
New York Jewry need not bow its heads and grovel before the incoming mayor. Instead, we must find common ground.
An open door at City Hall
A constituency as large as the Jewish community of New York City – and as influential as ours in all other corridors – is in need of an open door to City Hall. And there are ways to do that.
After having spent much of his influence and money opposing Mamdani’s bid for office, hedge fund tycoon Bill Ackman has been the first public Jew and big business mogul to extend an olive branch to the mayor-elect. In a simple but clear message to Mamdani via his X (formerly Twitter) account, Ackman offered him congratulations. And then he wrote: “Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
Let us follow his lead and let us take action. Let us show the country that Jews and lovers of Israel will not be silenced and will not be sidelined. And let everyone remember that as New York goes, so goes the rest of the country – and the world.
The writer is a columnist and a social and political commentator. Watch his new TV show Thinking Out Loud on JBS.