The ghost of Manhattan

 

There’s a new sheriff in town. New York City – known as ‘the City that never sleeps’ and ‘the Big Apple’ – has a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He now oversees the world’s premier financial and fintech center, the largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a gross metropolitan product of over US$2.16 trillion, larger than all but nine countries in the world. His shadow is now cast over the home of the world’s two largest stock exchanges: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. His stewardship extends to Fifth Avenue, the most expensive shopping street in the world. New York City is also home to the highest number of billionaires, individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than USD $30 million), and millionaires of any city in the world. His is a great responsibility, and perhaps in God’s eyes NYC could well be called (as was Nineveh in Jonah 1:2) ‘that great city.’ Will this new mayor of the world’s largest Jewish city outside Israel be able to “be his brother’s keeper” (see Genesis 4:9), or will he end up falling under the curse which falls on all those who dishonor Israel (see Genesis 12:3)?

 

The world’s largest Jewish city outside Israel

Jewish people make up approximately 12% of NYC’s population – the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel. As of 2023, over 960,000 Jews lived in the five boroughs of New York City, and over 1.9 million Jews lived in the New York metropolitan area – approximately 25% of the entire American Jewish population. Judaism is the second-largest religion practiced in New York City. Nearly half of the city’s Jews live in Brooklyn (see ‘Brooklyn, the most Jewish spot on earth’. The world headquarters of some branches of Hasidism (Chabad, Bobover, and Satmar) are also located in that borough.

 

The ghost of anti-Semitism at the foundations

The first Jews to set foot on the soil of New York in 1654 (then called ‘New Amsterdam’ or ‘Nieuw Amsterdam’) were 23 Sephardi Jews (four couples, two widows, and thirteen children) fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition, just after Portugal conquered Dutch Brazil. These descendants of Jacob came face-to-face with Peter Stuyvesant, the Director General of New Netherland (Nieuw-Nederland), under the control of the Dutch West India Company (Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie).

Stuyvesant seized the Jewish families’ belongings and attempted to evict them from his city. He stated in a letter to the directors of the Dutch West India Company )dated September 22, 1654( that these Hebrews (which he called) “the deceitful race – such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ – be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony to the detraction of your worships and the dissatisfaction of your worships’ most affectionate subjects.” He referred to Jews as evil moneylenders – “their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates”, and insisted that “Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony.”

 

George Washington’s declaration to Jacob’s seed

President George Washington declared a foundational premise regarding safety and protection for Jews in America in a letter penned August 21, 1790, The President was responding to a letter of blessings sent to him by Moses Seixas, the warden of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island (Congregation Yeshuat Israel):

• “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens . . . May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

 

Jeremiah’s prophetic counsel

The God of Jacob spoke a prophetic promise over the exiles of Israel in Babylon nearly 2,600 years ago. He told the Jewish people to “seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to YHVH in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity”:

• “This is what YHVH of armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease. Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to YHVH in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

 

And this is how the Jewish people lived in their new exile in America – in George Washington’s words, “demeaning themselves as good citizens.”

 

The Statue of Liberty’s Jewish promise

Born in New York City on July 22, 1849, Emma Lazarus – a  Jewish American activist and poet – wrote a sonnet in 1883 which would have deep prophetic significance. Titled ‘The New Colossus’ and it was inspired by the arrival in America of the French-casted Statue of Liberty. Its lines are inscribed on a bronze plaque, fixed to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.  Lazarus was much involved in aiding Jewish refugees fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms in eastern Europe. She saw her sonnet as a way to express her empathy for these refugees. Here are a few lines from that poem:

 

“A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,

And her name – ‘Mother of Exiles.’

From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;

Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she with silent lips.

‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

 

Many of these masses, these immigrant exiles seeking refuge from persecution – in Emma’s mind – were certainly Jews – those who like Tevye’s family in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ sought shelter in America’s New York or elsewhere in that great country. In the God of Jacob’s sovereignty, He was opening up another country – another temporary shelter for His Chosen people, just before Hitler’s dark shadows began to fall across the threshold of Europe. That doorway of hope for the sons and daughters of Jacob was situated on Ellis Island, in New York Harbor.

 

The virus of anti-Semitism – still alive and well in America the beautiful

A new national survey from the Pew Research Center (September 22-28, 2025) among 3,445 adults charts the present metastasizing of anti-Semitism throughout the USA. 48% of all Democrats surveyed had an unfavorable view of the Israeli people, but 67% of all Republicans had a favorable view of the Israeli people. 77% of all Democrats had an unfavorable view of the Israeli government (and of these Democrats, 46% said they had a very unfavorable view). When one combines the numbers on both sides of the aisle, a total of 59% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Israeli government. These red flashing warning-lights reflect a jolting shift in the heart of America towards Israel, the nation described in Psalm 148:14 as “the people close to His heart.”

 

Anti-Semitism in the Home of the Free

Many Jewish people worldwide have thought of America as an exception to the rule of Jewish history: they assumed that the USA will never again be faced with anti-Jewish pogroms, exiles, concentration camps or genocidal slaughter. There has been a lightness of spirit for many North American Jews – that perhaps once and for all they have broken free from the anti-Semitic chains of Europe and the Middle East. “Persecuted Jews?” they say. “That won’t apply to North America! That view of Jewish history was written for another time – a more ancient period when things were different!”

Yet the eruption of anti-Semitic lava across the Western world, the attacking of Jewish students at American universities, the dastardly murder of Israeli Embassy staff in the nation’s capitol – and now the enthroning of a mayor in New York who dangles Palestinian Islamist hooks and communist economic agendas from his electoral fishing line – it must be said that it is no longer business as usual.

 

• Years ago a dear prophetic friend shared with me that a day was coming when the gates of Russia would be opened for Jewish emigration but that, contrary to expectation, a day would come when New York City would close its heart and its gates to the Jewish people. That day has now stepped out of the prophetic fog.

 

Like father, like son

The Mayor-elect of New York City is named Zohran Mamdani. He was born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda. Zohran is an Arabic word meaning ‘the first star in the sky’ while ‘Mamdani’ is a composite of two roots: an Indian Gujarati word ‘Mām’ meaning pride or courage; and ‘Māmadō’, a local Gujarati version of the Arabic name Muhammad, often appearing in Hindu surnames of converts to Islam.

The Mamdani roots trace back to the Khōjā South Asian Muslim merchant caste (southeastern Pakistan and Kachchh), who converted to the Shi’ite Twelver Community. According to the U.S. State Department 2019 Report of International Religious Freedom: Iran, “the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran defines that country as an Islamic republic and specifies Twelver Ja’afari Shia Islam as the official state religion.” Zohran Mamdani identifies as a Shi’ite, and specifically as a Twelver Shi’ite, according to his November 26, 2019 tweet: “Got mad love for my Ismaili’s but I’m actually Ithna-Asheri” [Arabic for ‘Twelver’].

Mamdani’s middle name is Kwame, given in honor of Kwame Nkrumah (first president of Ghana). Nkrumah was a communist revolutionary, according to intelligence documents released by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Historian: “Nkrumah was doing more to undermine [U.S. government] interests than any other black African … [known for] his strongly pro-Communist leanings.” In 1961, Nkrumah went on tour through Eastern Europe, proclaiming solidarity with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. In 1962 Kwame Nkrumah was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union.

Zohran Mamdani’s father Mahmood, was born in Uganda to an Indian Khōjā merchant family. Mahmood was exiled from Uganda in 1972 (along with many other Asians) by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at the age of 26, though he eventually returned to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, setting up the Institute for Social Research (2010) and eventually becoming chancellor there (2020). He is also Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology, political science and African studies at Columbia University in New York City.

On December 6, 2001, Mahmood Mamdani gave a speech on “Making Sense of Violence in Postcolonial Africa” at the Nobel Centennial Symposium in Oslo, Norway. In that speech, he argued that the roots of postcolonial African violence lie in the institutional legacy of the colonial state. Mamdani claimed that violence was an acceptable and understandable ‘resistance’ response to colonialist powers.

In his 2002 academic book (written post-9/11) ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror’, Mamdani applies his theories justifying African terrorism to America and al Qa’eda. He states that calling al Qa’eda ‘bad Muslims’ masks a failure to make a proper political analysis of modern times. According to him, ‘political Islam’ (his term for jihadi terror) “has emerged as a result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism, a battle that cannot be won by occupation.”

Noam Chomsky, maverick Marxist and anti-Israel/anti-America enfant terrible, spoke highly of Mamdani’s message: “This provocative and thoughtful inquiry raises hard and serious questions. It is a valuable contribution to the understanding of some of the most important developments in the contemporary era.” Chomsky is a long-time member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as is Zohran Mamdani. The DSA is taking much credit for Mamdani’s recent victory in New York City.

The DSA Anti-War Working Group accidentally released an internal document on November 2, 2025 which reflects its dedication “to countering U.S. imperialism and resisting U.S. regime-change operations and interventions in foreign wars and conflicts.” Here is its list detailing how the NYC DSA branch (to which Mamdani belongs) intends to pressure the Mayor-elect to enact extreme anti-Israel policies for the governing of New York City:

 

• Divest City pension funds from Israeli bonds and securities
• Withdraw City funds from banks that lend money to Israel or do business in Israel
• End City contracts with companies that do business with Israel
• Operate City-run grocery stores free from Israeli products
• Investigate real estate agents hosting illegal sales of stolen lands in the West Bank
• Evict weapons manufacturers and transporters from the NYC Metro Area
• Remove non-profit status from charities that raise funds for IDF
• Divest CUNY endowment and reinstate wrongly fired professors
• Dismantle Eric Adam’s NYC-Israel economic council
• End NYPD training with IOF End repression of demonstrators and the SRG  
• Arrest Netanyahu and active IDF soldiers for war crimes

 

These are some of the spiritual and political foundations of New York City’s new mayor.

 

The Mamdani Family on the record

Zohran has come by his unrelenting hostility to the Jewish state and its supporters honestly: he imbibed it from his mother’s anti-Israel films and from his father’s anti-Semitic lectures and participation in anti-Israel activities. Zohran’s wife Rama Sawaf Duwaji, born in Houston to Syrian Muslim parents from Damascus, publicly mourned the death this week of Hamas influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi (who cheered for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 atrocities as they happened).

Zohran’s mother is India-born filmmaker Mira Nair, whose film-making career and stage projects have been avidly bankrolled by Hamas-supporting Qatar. The sister to Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, and the state-funded cultural institutions she controls, have supported Mira Nair and her creative projects since at least 2009. Since June 2025 Sheikha Al-Thani has also been promoting Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy on social media.

“For Zohran Mamdani, Mom Mira Nair’s Films Were a Formative Influence” shout the headlines of the July 1, 2025 New York Post. The article focused especially on her movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which “seeks a balance between honoring the understandable American reactions of anger and grief to 9/11 and its aftermath while also platforming a more global perspective where those events played very differently . . . [It is suggesting] to consider how a radical was made, and that mistreatment and bias in the West can be a contributing factor.” Over the years Zohran’s mother and father have stressed the same theme, as they attempt to justify Hamas jihadi violent muqawama (Arabic for resistance). Their son Zohran’s has repeatedly made use of the same talking points.

In a December 2, 2014 lecture at Columbia University, Mahmood Mamdani (Herbert H. Lehman Professor of Government) clearly called for the dismantling of the State of Israel (video clip location at 6:22- 6:55; ‘Palestine’s South Africa Moment?’ Part 2):

• “The Palestinian challenge is to persuade the Jewish population of Israel and the world that­ – just as in South Africa – the long-term security of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine requires the dismantling of the Jewish state. Jews can have a homeland in historic Palestine, but not a state.”

 

On December 7, 2014, Mamdani ‘turned up the volume,’ accusing Israel as being the successors of the Nazis, while declaring that jihadi atrocities against Israel are not actually terrorism:

• “We live at a time when political violence has been conflated with criminal violence, when all forms of resistance are being redefined as terror, when repression is embraced as a war on terror. It is a tribute to the tenacity of the Palestinian people, led by those in Gaza, and the political work done by the Palestinian resistance, including BDS, that Israel and the United States have been unable to tar popular resistance in historic Palestine with the brush of terrorism. More than ever the world is convinced that the cause of the Palestinian people is just.”

 

In 2020 Mahmood Mamdani called for the ‘de-Zionization’ of the Jewish state of Israel:

• “The Nazi political project, by creating a Germany without Jews [laid] the groundwork for an Israel without Palestinians …I point to de-Zionization, which would sever the state from the nation. The heart of de-Zionization is the realization of Israel as a state for all its citizens [i.e., not a Jewish state]”

 

In his own words

For more background here, see my June 27, 2025 newsletter https://davidstent.org/may-all-who-hate-zion-be-put-to-shame-psalm-1295/.

Zohran co-founded Bowdoin College’s branch of the anti-Israel radical group Students for Justice in Palestine. In 2021 Mamdani told a rally that he identified as an anti-Zionist (relevant video clip starts at 39:30).

YouTube shows Mamdani clearly stating on September 11, 2023 (less than a month before Hamas’ October 7 pogroms) that advocacy for Palestinian/Hamas resistance and BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions of Israel) is “central to his identity.”

The anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace has warmly endorsed Mamdani in his NYC mayoral run.

On October 8, 2023 Mamdani tweeted the following: “Statement on ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine: I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours. Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”

The deception involved here is clear: less than 24 hours before, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust had occurred. Mamdani sidesteps that, and calls it “ongoing violence” rather than jihadi terrorism. He states that in the last 24 hours the violence occurred “in Israel and Palestine.” Actually it only occurred in Israel – over 1,200 Jews murdered at the hands of Palestinian jihadis. The fault (according to Mamdani) is not jihadi Hamas carrying out their murderous jihadi Charter, but something called ‘Netanyahu’s declaration of war.’ Mamdani defines a ‘just and lasting peace’ as the expulsion of all Jews from Israel, referring to an ‘apartheid’ that simply does not exist.

Mamdani has vowed that if elected, he would arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York.

Mamdani publicly advocates for boycotting Israel and cutting off all ties between NYC and the Jewish state.  When asked by The Bulwark podcast host, Tim Miller, if the phrases ‘Globalize the intifada’ and ‘From the river to the sea’ make him uncomfortable, Mamdani explained that he doesn’t support banning language, and then drew a moral equivalence between the anti-Nazi Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Uprising and Hamas’ jihadi anti-Jewish October 7 attacks. Elisha Wiesel, son of author and survivor of the Holocaust Elie Wiesel, stated that “globalizing the intifada is code switching for ‘kill the Jews’ . . . We need to keep antisemites out of the mayor’s office.”

 

The Jewish community sees the threat of Mamdani as a clear and present danger

Jonathan S. Tobin of Jewish News Syndicate, in his article ‘What would a Mayor Mamdani mean for American Jews?,’ discusses Mamdani’s willingness to endorse antisemitic tropes and his support for anti-Zionist agitation:

• Mamdani’s support for the virulently antisemitic mobs that took over campuses at major New York institutions like Columbia University, New York University, various branches of the City University of New York (CUNY) and smaller-scale but consistent demonstrations at the New School is at the heart of his political identity. He stands for a point of view that delegitimizes and demonizes mainstream Jewish life. For him, only Jews who are willing to deny an essential element of Jewish identity, ethnicity and faith by disavowing Israel and Zionism deserve to be treated as worthy of being allowed into the public square and to be defended as equal citizens.

 

• That’s why so many in the Jewish community are treating this as a crisis. It’s also why more than 700 rabbis and counting from across America have signed a letter sponsored by the Jewish Majority anti-extremist group calling for Americans “to stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security” and for “our interfaith and communal partners to stand with the Jewish community in rejecting this dangerous rhetoric and to affirm the rights of Jews to live securely and with dignity.” This potentially puts New York’s Jews in a position that is virtually unprecedented in modern American history.

 

• Mamdani’s vision of the future, both in terms of socialism and antisemitism, is something that ought to scare any sensible American. And it presents a clear and present threat to American Jews, who have already been affected by the surge of Jew-hatred impacting their lives and security post-Oct. 7, 2023. Those who claim to support the Jewish community shouldn’t stand on the sidelines right now; they should do whatever is necessary to ensure Mamdani’s defeat. Their failure to do so is a sign that they don’t understand the nature of the crisis and is nothing less than an unconscionable failure of moral courage.

 

Zvi Klein of The Jerusalem Post adds:

• “Sociologically it feels like a turning point. Part of the shock is symbolic. For decades, the mayor of the world’s largest Jewish city outside Israel made a point of standing with the community. Mayors lit menorahs, walked in the Fifth Avenue Celebrate Israel Parade, and spoke fluently about the city’s Jewish life.”

 

Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli writes on X (Hebrew; English):

• “The city that was once a symbol of global freedom has handed over its keys to a Hamas supporter – someone whose views are not far from those of the jihadist fanatics who, 25 years ago, murdered three thousand of its own people. This is a critical turning point for New York City. The choice New York has made shakes the very foundations of the place that once granted freedom and opportunity to countless Jewish refugees since the late 19th century – a city that became home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel. All of that ended this morning. It didn’t happen overnight – it began with the anti-Zionist atmosphere on campuses taken over by Qatari money, continued with the violent demonstrations of Hamas supporters at CUNY, NYU, and especially at Columbia University, which became the fortress of Hamas support in the United States. It reached its peak this morning, when the last of the bullies, a supporter of Hamas’s rapists and murderers, was elected mayor. New York will never be the same again, especially not for its Jewish community. The city is walking with open eyes into the same abyss that London fell into. The torch of liberty in this beautiful city has gone out, and there’s no point in wasting words pretending everything will be fine – nothing will be fine in this city. I call on the Jews of New York to seriously consider making their new home in the Land of Israel. The Eternal One of Israel does not lie.”

 

Mamdani’s election will be a potential turning point in American Jewish history as anti-Semitism not only becomes endemic but becomes an accepted part of mainstream political culture. While such views were confined to the fever swamps of the far left not so long ago, they have gone mainstream in the wake of the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the last decade, coupled with the surge of international antisemitism since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

 

Lessons for Europe as well

Hungary’s European Union Affairs Minister János Bóka points out a sober warning:

• “Even political actors are now using a language that is anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist on the surface, but very deliberately, they are balancing on the edge of being antisemitic. I think they are very consciously using a terminology that could be interpreted both ways. Those who are in favor of the European civilization and European culture, as we know that is based on Judeo-Christian roots or is rooted in a Judeo-Christian tradition, then we must reinforce our efforts so this process will not result in a Europe that is not a welcoming environment for Jewish communities anymore.”

 

The Rabbi speaks in the Big Apple

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove is the highly respected leader of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City’s Upper East Side. On Shabbat October 18, 2025 he stepped up to the bema and gave what might be the most important derashah (sermon) in his life. Here are some brief excerpts:

 

• To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York Jewish community. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide in Thursday’s debate – for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant – he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York. For those of you who heard what I said over the High Holidays, my words should come as no surprise. For those of you who have heard what I have said over the last eighteen years, my words should come as no surprise whatsoever.

 

• Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination – these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive – no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith.

 

• One need look no further than the events of the past week (or, for that matter, the past two years) to understand the shape and substance of the Jewish soul – how bound up we have all been with the plight of the hostages and our jubilation at their release. In our highs and in our lows, in our tortured angst and our fragile hopes, in our prayers and our protests, we feel our connection to Israel and its people. It is the invisible string that has tugged at our hearts since the very beginnings of our people.

 

• Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again – in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person – has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.” Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But today, as I have before, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late. … It is, by a certain telling, a story as old as the Garden of Eden itself. We stand here – staring at that Big Apple, if you will – wondering what is in our long-term best interest. 

 

Stand up and be counted!

On November 5, 2025, the excellent organization StandWithUS posted a riveting wake-up call:

 

• At a time of rising antisemitism and extremism in the United States and around the world, Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City should serve as a wake up call.

 

• Mamdani has promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory falsely blaming Israelis for cases of police brutality in New York, openly supports the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement calling it the “core of my politics,” made excuses for dangerous and violent slogans such as “globalize the intifada,” and promoted campaigns to strip away the rights of Jews to self-determination in Israel. His closest political allies, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Linda Sarsour, have long records of antizionism. He has refused to say Hamas should lay down its arms. His campaign has tokenized Jews by using Satmar Hasidic Jews and the far-left self-described Jewish Voice for Peace to deflect criticism and avoid accountability.

 

• CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) donated significantly to the Mamdani campaign. CAIR’s leader said he was “happy” about October 7^th Hamas invasion and massacre.      

 

• This is especially alarming in an environment where Jewish communities already face unprecedented levels of hate crimes, harassment, and intimidation. Now more than ever, leadership matters. When elected officials normalize or excuse violent bigotry, they embolden further discrimination and physical attacks.

 

• Fueling antisemitism will not help make New York a better or more affordable place to live. It will only poison the city and make it harder to solve its biggest problems. We hope the incoming Mayor will have the humility to abandon the destructive ideas and toxic allies he has embraced throughout his political career.

 

• As Mamdani assumes office, StandWithUs will use all the tools at our disposal to defend the rights of Jewish New Yorkers. We will educate and speak out against antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism in all their forms. We will hold Mayor Mamdani accountable, and we expect civic leaders, the media, and the public to do likewise, toward making New York a city where all Jews, and all people, can be safe and welcome.

 

How shall we then pray?

Pray for Bible-based courage, discernment, clarity of thought and revelation be given to leaders and decision makers, Jewish and Christian, involved in these issues.

 

• Pray for Christian pastors, teachers and spokesmen and women to take a stand

 

• Pray for the bolstering of the Jewish people’s prophetic courage and discernment

 

• Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth!

 

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

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