By: Fern Sidman

By the time Mayor Zohran Mamdani stepped before cameras on Saturday morning to insist that chants in support of Hamas have “no place in our city,” the controversy had already metastasized into a full-blown political reckoning. As The New York Daily News reported on Saturday afternoon, the mayor’s evolving response to a deeply unsettling protest outside a Queens synagogue has become an early referendum on his moral leadership at a moment when Jewish New Yorkers feel increasingly exposed.

The episode began Thursday night outside Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, a synagogue nestled in a neighborhood long defined by its Jewish institutions, family homes, and day schools. Protesters gathered to oppose an event at the synagogue offering real-estate opportunities in Jerusalem.

Video footage that went viral early Friday showed demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” The chant explicitly praised the Iranian-backed Islamist terror organization responsible for the October 7 terror attack on Israel. Within hours, the footage ricocheted across social media platforms, generating widespread outrage.

Yet as The New York Daily News report indicated, Mayor Mamdani remained publicly silent throughout the morning hours of Friday, even as pressure mounted from Jewish leaders and elected officials demanding a swift denunciation.

At 9:32 a.m. Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul filled the vacuum. Writing on X, she delivered an unequivocal condemnation that was quoted prominently by The New York Daily News:

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that calls for the genocide of Jews. No matter your political beliefs, this type of rhetoric is disgusting, it’s dangerous, and it has no place in New York.”

The governor’s words crystallized what many were already thinking: in a city that prides itself on pluralism and tolerance, public expressions of support for a terrorist group had crossed an immutable line.

Within hours, former Mayor Eric Adams echoed Hochul’s rebuke. Still, City Hall offered no immediate statement, leaving critics to wonder why the city’s highest official appeared hesitant to confront the rhetoric.

It was not until roughly 1 p.m. on Friday that Mamdani’s office issued a statement, which The New York Daily News described as measured but incomplete. The mayor wrote that his team was “in close touch with the NYPD regarding last night’s protest and counterprotest” and that the city would “continue to ensure New Yorkers’ safety entering and exiting houses of worship as well as the constitutional right to protest.”

What was missing, critics charged, was any explicit mention of Hamas.

The omission ignited a wave of criticism from Jewish community leaders and political rivals, many of whom accused Mamdani of attempting to straddle an impossible line between condemning antisemitic rhetoric and appeasing elements of his progressive base.

Later Friday afternoon, the mayor revised his tone. In a follow-up social media post, he declared that “chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city,” language that The New York Daily News report noted was far closer to Hochul’s original denunciation.

Still, for many, the damage was done.

The delay has to be understood within a broader context. Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly alarmed by the rising tide of hostility since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. Synagogues have become flashpoints for demonstrations, even when congregations are not themselves organizing the events being protested.

As The New York Daily News reported, this is not the first time such tensions have erupted. On November 19, a protest outside Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side devolved into a political firestorm after demonstrators were allowed to gather immediately outside the synagogue’s doors. In that instance, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch personally attended a service afterward and apologized that police had failed to establish a frozen zone to protect worshippers. The department’s Internal Affairs Bureau subsequently launched an investigation into the handling of that protest.

Against that backdrop, the Queens demonstration felt less like an aberration and more like a grim continuation of a troubling pattern.

Complicating matters further, the protest was not a one-sided eruption of hostility. According to The New York Times, pro-Israel counter protesters were recorded shouting anti-terror chants. The New York Daily News included this in its coverage as evidence of the combustible atmosphere engulfing such events.

By Saturday, the mayor appeared determined to close the credibility gap. At an unrelated news conference, Mamdani spoke with a sharper edge, telling reporters that demonstrators’ screams were “wrong” and had “no place in our city.”

“There’s no place for support for a terrorist organization in New York City. And I want to say that very clearly to New Yorkers,” he said, in remarks prominently cited by The New York Daily News.

When pressed about why it had taken him hours to reach that conclusion publicly, Mamdani defended his timeline.

“I commented on the protest around the same time” as former Mayor Adams, he insisted, adding that his statements were “consistent with my own politics and my own policies.”

“Not only was that wrong,” he continued, “but also that it has no place in our city.”

The controversy has landed on especially sensitive terrain because Mamdani is already under close scrutiny from Jewish leaders over his past comments and positions regarding Israel and the war in Gaza. As The New York Daily News has reported, some in the community view those positions as emboldening anti-Jewish sentiment, even if unintentionally.

For these critics, the mayor’s delayed denunciation was not a mere scheduling mishap but an emblem of a deeper ambivalence. They argue that in moments of moral crisis, leadership is measured not in hours but in instinct.

A synagogue in Kew Gardens Hills, they contend, should not have to wait half a day to hear unequivocal condemnation of chants praising a group that carried out mass murder.

Mamdani’s defenders counter that the mayor is navigating a treacherous constitutional landscape. The First Amendment protects even abhorrent speech, and city officials must be careful not to conflate moral condemnation with censorship.

That tension is embedded in Mamdani’s repeated emphasis on both safety and the “constitutional right to protest.” As The New York Daily News report observed, the mayor has sought to frame the issue as one of balance — protecting houses of worship while preserving civil liberties.

Yet critics reply that condemning speech is not the same as suppressing it, and that moral clarity need not infringe upon constitutional freedoms.

In the end, the uproar over Mamdani’s response is about more than one protest or one delayed statement. It is about whether New York City, long a refuge for Jewish life, can maintain that identity in an era of globalized conflict and polarized politics.

The Queens rally, like the Park East Synagogue protest before it, has forced the city to confront an uncomfortable truth: the line between political advocacy and intimidation is eroding, and synagogues are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines.

As The New York Daily News report emphasized, the way city leaders respond to such incidents will reverberate far beyond any single neighborhood. For Mayor Mamdani, whose tenure is still in its infancy, the stakes could not be higher.

He has now said, clearly, that support for Hamas has no place in New York. Whether that clarity will restore confidence among Jewish New Yorkers — or whether the memory of silence will linger — is a question only time, and perhaps the next protest.