What Does Mamdani’s Victory Portend for America, Jews, and Israel?

The winning vote for New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani — slightly more than 50 percent of the electorate, including more than 30 percent of Jewish voters — tells us that 80 years after the Holocaust, New Yorkers are prepared to vote for an antisemite, not necessarily because of his anti-Jewish bigotry, but despite it. Without making any comparisons or analogies, we must recall the 1932 voting in Germany, where Hitler and his Nazi party received a plurality of the votes, not necessarily because of his antisemitism but despite it. Hitler campaigned on reducing unemployment, ending the Depression, and making Germans proud of their heritage. Antisemites voted for him, but so did ordinary Germans who simply wanted a better life. They were prepared to ignore or discount his hatred for Jews. Hitler’s success during his first few years in keeping those promises turned many ordinary Germans into the antisemites who willingly supported anti-Jewish laws and ultimately the Holocaust. I am not suggesting that Mr. Mamdani’s victory will lead to such dire results, but if he succeeds as mayor — if he makes New York more livable and affordable without bankrupting it — many more people will follow him into his dark hatred of all things Israeli, Zionist, and Jewish. The 30-plus percent of Jews who voted for him either don’t believe this or don’t care. Many of them are radicals first, anti-Trumpers second, anti-American third, anti the current Israeli government fourth, and anti-Israel fifth.The difficult question is whether the Mamdani supporters who voted for a candidate who refuses to recognize Israel as the Jewish state while recognizing the numerous Muslim states, represents the future of the democratic party or indeed the future of New York. Alternatively, did Mr. Mamdani win largely because his two opponents were politics-as-usual candidates who represented the establishment and the past? Could he have beaten, for example, the capable and highly qualified police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, if she had run against him in a one-on-one election? We don’t know, although it is possible we may learn it if Ms. Tisch decides to run against him in the next election.For me, as a liberal Jew who grew up at Brooklyn, the deepest concern is that antisemitism and anti-Israel bigotry are no longer disqualifying factors in a New York election. That would not have been the case several years ago. Yet if it has become true in New York, it is probably true in much of the rest of the country and clearly in much of the rest of the world.The double standard applicable to everything Jewish, including Israel, has become normalized. What you can say today about Jews in Israel cannot be said about other groups or even other nations. The hard right has always had, and still has, a Jewish problem, as remanifested by Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and others. The hard left now has a similar problem, as represented by Mr. Mamdani, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, and many university faculty members, administrators, and students. The animus on both ends of the political spectrum is based on the claim that Jews are “privileged” because of their wealth and accomplishments, along with the idea that Israel is privileged because of its support from America. Whatever the reasons, Jews and their national state are caught in a pincer movement between the hard right and the hard left.This is not new. During the 1930s, the only thing Hitler and Stalin had in common was their hatred for Jews, Zionists, and cosmopolitans. In the Soviet Union “cosmopolitanism” was used by hard-left communists as a euphemism for Jews. Today “globalism” is used by hard right neo-fascists as a euphemism for Jews, proving once again that Jews are caught between the red and the black.Jews have always thrived at the center, though many individual Jews have been associated with extremes on both sides. America too has thrived at the center. Notwithstanding recent electoral successes by a handful of extremists, America is still a centrist country. So Mr. Mamdani’s victory may spread to other blue cities, but it is unlikely to bring socialism and anti-Israel bigotry to other parts of the country, whether light red or light blue.We live in a dangerous world in which extremism on both sides is gaining traction. The Mamdani election is a symptom of a potentially contagious disease, but we have the ability to prevent its spread by maintaining the centrist tradition of America that has made us the most successful country in the history of the world.

What Does Mamdani’s Victory Portend for America, Jews, and Israel?

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