By: Fern Sidman – Jewish Voice News

The election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s 111th mayor — the first Muslim, first South Asian, and youngest to hold the office in modern history — has left the city’s Jewish community reeling, divided, and uncertain about what the future holds. According to a report on Tuesday evening in The Forward, the reaction among Jewish leaders and organizations ranged from icy restraint to open alarm, with many questioning how a city that is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel could have elected a man whose rhetoric has repeatedly alienated and offended so many within that very community.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman from Queens and a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, coasted to victory against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June. His triumph — historic and polarizing in equal measure — reflects the shifting ideological landscape of New York politics. Yet for many Jewish leaders and ordinary voters, it also exposes a deeper fracture over how to reconcile progressive identity politics with the defense of Israel and Jewish security.

As The Forward reported, Jewish reactions to Mamdani’s win were “a study in contrasts — between alarm and accommodation, between generational defiance and traditional fear.” Some younger Jewish voters saw his victory as a bold rejection of what they perceive as establishment hypocrisy. But for many others, particularly within New York’s Orthodox and pro-Israel communities, Mamdani’s ascent represents a dangerous normalization of anti-Israel sentiment in mainstream American politics.

Throughout his campaign, Mamdani attempted to deflect attention from his foreign policy views, insisting that “New York’s real battle is over housing, wages, and opportunity.” Yet his repeated refusal to disavow the slogan “globalize the intifada” — a phrase widely understood as a call to violence against Jews and Israelis — ensured that his candidacy was never far removed from the moral and political implications of his rhetoric.

As the report in The Forward documented, Mamdani also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, denounced U.S. military aid to the Jewish state, and made clear that he would not attend the city’s annual Celebrate Israel Parade, a longstanding fixture of Jewish pride and solidarity in New York.

Such positions might once have been disqualifying for a mayoral candidate. But in 2025’s fractured political environment — fueled by rising progressive populism and disillusionment with establishment politics — they became rallying cries for a new coalition of voters seeking ideological purity over pragmatism.

Still, the backlash was fierce. Exit polling by CNN revealed that 60% of New York’s Jewish voters backed Cuomo, while Mamdani performed strongly among younger, secular progressives and immigrant communities.

“Mamdani’s win exposes a generational divide within the Jewish community,” The Forward wrote, noting that many younger Jews have grown increasingly critical of Israeli policies and sympathetic to Palestinian suffering. “For their elders, however, this election feels like a betrayal — not just of Israel, but of the Jewish people’s hard-won place in American life.”

Official responses from Jewish institutions were notably subdued — a silence that, as the report in The Forward suggested, spoke volumes.

The Anti-Defamation League, UJA-Federation of New York, Jewish Federation, American Jewish Committee, and Jewish Community Relations Council issued a joint statement that acknowledged Mamdani’s victory but pointedly declined to congratulate him.

“New Yorkers have spoken, electing Zohran Mamdani as the next Mayor of New York City,” the statement read. “We recognize that voters are animated by a range of issues, but we cannot ignore that the Mayor-elect holds core beliefs fundamentally at odds with our community’s deepest convictions and most cherished values.”

The organizations pledged to hold Mamdani accountable for ensuring Jewish safety and protecting “the vitality of Jewish life and support for Israel in the city.”

As the report in The Forward observed, the statement “reflected a quiet but unmistakable alarm — a realization that the city’s Jewish leadership must now negotiate with a mayor whose moral worldview sees Israel not as an ally, but as an oppressor.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, struck a sharper tone on social media, writing, “Given Mamdani’s long, disturbing record on issues of deep concern to the Jewish community, we will approach the next four years with resolve.”

The election also prompted scathing rebukes from Jewish conservatives and Republican-aligned organizations. The Republican Jewish Coalition declared Mamdani’s victory “a dark day for the city and for American Jewry.”

“It’s official,” the group wrote in a statement sent to the media, “Zohran Mamdani is now the face of the Democratic Party. While Republicans loudly condemn antisemitism, Democrats have shamefully elected an antisemite to run the largest city in America — the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel.”

The statement accused Mamdani of accepting donations from “terror-sympathizing organizations,” and of being “anti-police, anti-capitalist, and anti-Israel.”

Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue issued perhaps the most dramatic response, announcing plans to establish the Hamptons’ first Jewish day school “in anticipation of the thousands of Jewish families that will flee New York City to escape the antisemitic climate of Mamdani’s New York.”

His warning, The Forward reported, “may have been hyperbolic, but it captured a visceral anxiety that now hangs over much of Jewish New York — a fear that the city once regarded as the beating heart of the Jewish diaspora may soon become inhospitable to it.”

Yet not all Jewish voices were hostile. A smaller but vocal contingent of left-leaning Jewish activists celebrated Mamdani’s win as a long-overdue rejection of what they see as Israel’s “occupation politics.”

During his victory speech, Mamdani pledged to “build a city hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.”

The report in The Forward noted that the line drew applause from several Jewish supporters in attendance — a reminder that Mamdani’s relationship with Jewish New Yorkers is complex, not entirely adversarial.

Meyer Labin, a Jewish writer and activist, shared the clip on X (formerly Twitter), captioning it: “Music to my ears. Congratulations, mayor @zohranmamdani.”

Progressive Jewish figures such as Brad Lander, the city comptroller, who campaigned vigorously for Mamdani, hailed the result as “a turning point for Jewish political conscience.” He appeared at the mayor-elect’s victory party wearing a T-shirt directed at Cuomo that read, “Good F***ing Riddance.”

Others, like journalist and Israel critic Peter Beinart, framed the moment as generational: “If you’re a Jewish New Yorker who can’t understand why people voted for Zohran Mamdani,” he wrote, “ask your children. They probably did too.”

As The Forward put it, “Beinart’s comment distilled the uncomfortable truth: Mamdani’s rise is not an aberration but a reflection of where a significant segment of young, progressive Jewish identity is headed — toward a vision of Judaism divorced from Zionism.”

Reactions across social media were volatile and deeply polarized. The Forward chronicled the wave of grief, anger, and sarcasm that flooded X in the hours after the election was called.

Jewish influencer Lizzy Savetsky posted bluntly, “This will get ugly.” Conservative commentator Shabbos Kestenbaum took a darker comedic approach, writing, “According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Zohran Mamdani has just won with 312% of the vote.”

The remark, mocking Mamdani’s reliance on Hamas-linked data in his criticisms of Israel, went viral — before it was rebuked by other Jewish commentators. “This kind of rhetoric doesn’t help,” replied writer Zack Schrieber. “It pushes Zionism further to the margins of American politics.”

As the report in The Forward observed, this microcosm of online infighting reflected the deeper fracture within Jewish political identity itself — “between those who see opposition to Israel as a form of social justice, and those who see it as a betrayal of Jewish survival.”

For many Jewish New Yorkers, the broader implications of Mamdani’s victory stretch far beyond Israel. They fear that his radical economic agenda, combined with his antagonism toward law enforcement and sympathy for anti-Israel activism, will corrode the social and civic cohesion that once made New York a sanctuary for Jewish life.

As The Forward noted, “Jewish leaders worry that Mamdani’s worldview — steeped in the rhetoric of colonial liberation — will embolden the very movements that have made Jewish spaces targets of protest and vandalism.”

Under outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, antisemitic hate crimes surged to record levels, with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force logging nearly 400 incidents in 2024 alone. Now, many fear that with Mamdani at the helm, that number could climb even higher, amid a perceived decline in police morale and a city government reluctant to confront antisemitism rooted in progressive activism.

“The danger is not that Mamdani will openly endorse antisemitism,” one community leader told The Forward. “It’s that he will fail to recognize it when it comes from his own side.”

For Jewish institutions, the coming years will be a test of endurance — and diplomacy. The UJA-Federation of New York, in its statement pledged to “hold all elected officials, including Mayor-elect Mamdani, fully accountable for ensuring that New York remains a place where Jewish life and support for Israel are protected and can thrive.”

That means engaging with a City Hall that may be ideologically unsympathetic, but politically unavoidable.

Some, like philanthropist Bill Ackman, have chosen a conciliatory path. “@zohranmamdani congrats on the win,” Ackman wrote on X. “Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”

Others believe confrontation is the only answer. “You don’t make peace with a man who sees your people as colonial aggressors,” said a prominent Orthodox rabbi quoted in The Forward’s report. “You make plans to protect your community.”

The Forward report noted, “Mamdani’s victory represents both the culmination of a political realignment and the beginning of an existential reckoning for Jewish New Yorkers.”

The election has forced the city’s Jewish population — diverse, vibrant, and often divided — to confront difficult questions about identity and belonging in a changing America.

Can Jewish life thrive in a city led by a man who calls Israel a colonial state? Can dialogue bridge the widening chasm between Jewish universalists and Jewish particularists? And what happens when the world’s most visible Jewish diaspora community no longer feels at home in its own city hall?

The report in The Forward captured the unease that lingers across synagogues, campuses, and neighborhoods: “For decades, New York has been the beating heart of American Jewish life. Whether it remains so under Zohran Mamdani will depend not only on his words, but on the courage and vigilance of those who refuse to let that light go out.”