Mamdani and the American Jews

By: Ricardo Israel - 09/11/2025

Zohran Mamdani's electoral victory was noteworthy, though not surprising, as it was foreseeable after his primary win. An absolute majority made him mayor, and the defeat was shared by Republicans, the political center, and the more moderate Democrats. And although he wasn't on the ballot until Trump was defeated, he ended up assuming an unnecessary, plebiscitary role.

The list of losers also includes a community historically linked to the Democrats, namely the Jewish community, and given Mamdani's rejection of everything Israel represents, this column will refer to American Jews.

In the US, the Jewish community is the largest outside of Israel, and until the war started by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and the outbreak of Judeophobia throughout the world, when the American community was discussed, reference was usually made to its power and importance, exactly what seems to be questioned today, since after the massive demonstrations against Israel, we are perhaps witnessing a change of era in relation to the traditional bipartisan support that used to exist.

The Jewish population today represents about 2.4% of the total in the US, although according to FBI statistics, it has experienced the highest number of hate crimes against any religion or minority in recent years. Jews are not distributed among religious branches, but are concentrated in large cities, with New York vying with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the title of the most populous Jewish city. Within these cities, the various divisions of the Jewish people are reflected, including secular and religious groups. Within each of these groups, different branches are represented, not only religiously—among Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox currents—but also among secularists, atheists, and agnostics, as well as within each group, holding diverse political and ideological positions. Added to this are the traditional divisions between Ashkenazim (the majority in New York) and Sephardim and Mizrahi Jews.

On May 13, 2024, La Página Judía published a survey conducted by the UJA Federation of New York, which stated that 1.4 million Jews reside in New York City and its surrounding areas, including the five boroughs of New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island), as well as Watchtester County and Long Island. The survey also indicated that 37% of Jews have mixed marriages and that there are 13,000 Holocaust survivors, most of whom reside in Brooklyn.

It is a highly diverse community, with different national origins (including Israelis) among those not born in the U.S., a diversity that prevents them all from being lumped together and that refutes the antisemitic claim that Jews act as a group and in a very similar way. Moreover, one of the surprises for analysts, commentators, and the media was the number of Jews who appeared to vote for Mamdani, something that has generated much discussion, and there is an explanation for this.

The coverage of Jewish behavior is sometimes distorted by the Jews themselves, since, not being a proselytizing religion, public debate is influenced by views that are not always accurate, sometimes made by admirers and people of goodwill towards Jews, as is the case of Paul Johnson's History of the Jews, which, for example, devotes few pages to such an important event in Jewish history as the expulsion from Spain.

Furthermore, the coverage of this latest war and the subsequent anti-Semitic demonstrations throughout the West has suffered not only from the problem of how much distorting information comes from Hamas, but also from the fact that, in the current international press, old messages of hate about Israel and Jews have been disguised in a new format.

That said, the Jewish voting behavior in New York is still noteworthy, though not entirely surprising, even though support for the winner was estimated at around one-third of the Jewish voters. It's legitimate to raise this issue, since those who supported Mamdani acted similarly to the Latin Americans who also backed him, as those who came from there are well aware of the repeated failures to which such attractive offers of universal free services lead.

In fact, Israel's history reflects similar episodes in terms of electoral behavior. This is the case with religious and anti-Zionist Jews who consider the creation of modern Israel a historical mistake, as they await the Messiah. The very emergence of the State not only entailed negotiations among the various Zionist factions—which, in 1948, shortly after the Declaration of Independence, could have even clashed with arms, as in the case of the Altalena ship—but also involved negotiations between Ben-Gurion and the religious groups. Furthermore, there is an instrumental component that still leads religious parties today to support right-wing governments, such as Netanyahu's current administration, due to the concessions offered in exchange for their votes in parliament. Similarly, left-wing governments have traditionally made concessions to the kibbutzim.

Therefore, there is an element of clientelism that has also traditionally been observed in the Jewish vote in New York, particularly in densely populated communities where the suggestions of leaders have a significant influence on how people vote, as is the case in certain Orthodox communities, and which has repeatedly favored Democrats. In Israel, there is also the significant number of legislators from the Joint List, who participate in many negotiations and votes.

In other words, both Israel and New York are places of special diversity in their electoral behavior, which was noticeable in this election, where the Jewish vote for Mamdami, in short, came from Jewish youth as well as from anti-Zionist religious groups, which in some extreme cases have had contacts in Israel with the Iranian ayatollahs, with the former Ministry of Jewish Affairs of Arafat's PLO, and have participated in world conferences organized by the UN that have sought to delegitimize Israel, as happened with Geneva in 1978, Durban in 2001, and the commemoration of its 20th anniversary in 2021, as well as in the vote of the 70s, where the General Assembly equated Zionism and Racism, in such an unfair way that they were forced to change their minds later.

Do I like what happened in this New York election? No, I don't like it, just as I didn't like the antisemitism unleashed in recent years on the streets of New York or at Ivy League universities, including some of the most prestigious in the world. For me, the Jewish community in the U.S. was the global standard for Jews outside of Israel. I always emphasized that, but not anymore. I think what happened in recent years was so unexpected that it gave me the impression there was a shock of such magnitude that it was difficult to fully grasp its impact, and everything indicates that neither the community nor its leaders were prepared for such a gigantic manifestation of hatred, just as I wasn't.

But enough time has passed, and I believe self-criticism is necessary, since both in the election and in the antisemitism unleashed in streets and universities, I would have liked to see more presence, more adaptation to a new reality where everything can get worse instead of better, so a constant review is necessary to see if the tactics that were so appropriate in the past are still appropriate in this new reality.

I am concerned that this is happening in the US because if it happens here and the community doesn't react with the force it could in a country whose legal and juridical structure allows it, where else outside of Israel could Jews successfully do so? Moreover, today it would have the open support of the current Donald Trump administration. An additional reason why we should act with the utmost determination is that Jewish history includes two great tragedies, precisely when they felt content, valued, and integrated: not only in Germany with the Nazi Holocaust, but also in Spain in 1492, with the expulsion ordered by the Catholic Monarchs via Edict, an event still remembered with emotion and love by Sephardic Jews today.

The truth is, I would have liked the community to have done more to confront the antisemitic onslaught of recent years, elements I address in detail in a recently published book (“In Defense of Israel,” 461 pp., Amazon Books). I also would have liked to see the formation of a broad front that would attract the most diverse sectors available to confront Judeophobia, as well as to address the changes that both the U.S. and the Democratic Party are undergoing in relation to Jews and Israel. The election result that motivates this column will have a significant influence on those who share the views of the mayor-elect, especially since a primary period is beginning to define candidates for governors, representatives, and senators for the 2026 midterm elections.

Similarly, it is essential to review the internal processes taking place within the community. In this regard, I would have liked to see processes such as the worrying shift toward Israel among the community's youth addressed first and foremost, both locally and at the highest national level. This shift is, in a way, a reflection of what is happening with other young Americans. Likewise, I would also like to see the issue of "friendly fire"—the kind that has become public knowledge—addressed. This refers to those who, for political, ideological, or purely religious reasons, attended these anti-Israel demonstrations, allowing those who hate to claim that they weren't actually against Jews, but rather against "Zionism," which was and remains a lie.

I believe that the community, in addition to studying the change in tactics and strategies that are not working in this new and deteriorating reality, should address the problem of those who, as happened in the recent NY election, claim to represent Jews by speaking against Israel, sometimes or often without any community life, and only appearing as such because of a special identifying dress or some distant surname, to make it seem that these people only represent themselves, as well as work very actively on a very broad front to defend the right to be different, especially if the tradition for which one is fighting has a continuity of thousands of years that no one else can boast.

I would like to highlight two things, two examples to follow. The first is that of the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party has already gone through the experience that its counterpart, the Democratic Party, is now embarking on in the US. I find the actions of the Jewish community on the other side of the Atlantic remarkable. There, they resisted the Labour Party's takeover by an antisemitic leadership headed by a seasoned politician like Jeremy Corbyn. It was a successful reaction on several levels: reporting the situation to the state agencies that monitored illegal behavior, media campaigns that made Labour ineligible for election while the antisemitism persisted, and highly visible actions by Jewish members of parliament. The final result was judicial and administrative sanctions against Labour and the replacement of Corbyn, which allowed Labour to win the last general election last year.

Nothing similar is seen in the U.S., neither from the national Jewish community nor from those Jewish members of the Democratic Party who appear to be cornered by the actions of those who make up the squad within that party, a group that grows as well as the success of the discourse of those who think like Mamdani.

The second example for me is the African American community, since they are the only ones from whom I have heard a profound truth: that despite the racism they have suffered, what happened to the Jews in the universities and on the streets of New York would not have happened to them today. I think the Jewish community today should emulate them, especially in the automatic and unified way they react, with immediate consequences for those who have racist attitudes that violate the law. Furthermore, it would be a return to what Martin Luther King said in the 1960s, that in his struggle he aspired to achieve the same status that the Jews had attained, whom he always thanked for their support in the fight for civil rights, in addition to having kind words for Israel and Zionism.

All of this is necessary because the Jewish community has suffered a measurable setback in terms of deterrence, since what has happened in recent years has shattered many myths about Jewish "power" in universities, businesses, the media, Hollywood, etc. This openness is not necessarily good, as it undermines what previously existed, when those who hated Jews were self-limited by this vision of Jewish power, which today has proven, if not wrong, at least much less than previously thought.

There is a snake that has left the nest, spreading everywhere, and requires a different approach to what will continue to happen, especially given the normalization of attacks against Jews in the streets, the education system, and the media. In this regard, Jews may be fulfilling their old role as the canary in the coal mine, since what is happening to them could foreshadow similar situations for society as a whole and the country as a whole.

After Mamdani's victory, what happens among the Democrats is crucial, as it will determine whether these manifestations of antisemitism become marginalized or continue to fuel the mainstream. Other factors are also at play, such as the fatal arrogance we've witnessed, where so many voters believe that something that has repeatedly failed elsewhere, like the idea of state- or municipally owned stores, will succeed simply because New Yorkers are now attempting it—further evidence of the Latin Americanization of politics in this country. Perhaps what happened in New York is another example of a characteristic of our time: the illusion of knowledge, influenced by the internet and social media. The illusion has taken hold that simply reading ten lines on a cell phone is enough to make sound decisions, an idea that Umberto Eco warned against at the end of the last century.

The New York mayoral election is governed by the dual rule of democracy: if the elections are clean and legitimate, as they were on November 5th, the result is always respected, whether people like it or not. However, voters must also always take responsibility for their decisions.

It is in this context that the Jewish community needs to rethink how it is facing a situation that may not improve. I don't have the answer, beyond the fact that an adjustment is needed, a review of how well or poorly it continues to function in the new context, in the sense that there is a whole structure of institutions that connect the community with the surrounding society in the U.S., which undoubtedly provided immense services that became an example for other countries, but the reality that sustained it has changed beyond recognition.

I am convinced that the situation regarding Judeophobia is so bad that it can worsen, so all complexes must end, in order to take advantage of the best that the USA offers, a judicial system of rights, reflected in the constitution and the laws.

It's not just a problem of resources; it's also a matter of the will to review what's being done, to ensure that support and backing can be sought through increased public outcry and pressure. In other words, the situation is dire enough to conclude that we can't do it alone, as we may be entering the "boiled frog" scenario—the story where the moral is that if the frog is boiled in hot water, it reacts and jumps out of the pot, but if it's boiled in ice water, it becomes lethargic and, almost without realizing it, ends up being cooked.

What leads me to believe we might be entering this stage is that Mamdani, who gave such a defiant acceptance speech that reminded me of Chávez swearing in Caracas on a "dying Constitution," shortly afterward called for something as unbelievable as "ending the scourge of antisemitism." This same antisemitism, which he normalized to an unprecedented degree, was enough to make him mayor of the world's largest city, a city that contributed so much to the creation of modern capitalism alongside the English Industrial Revolution. During his campaign, he focused solely on highlighting the flaws and abuses of the United States, not its contributions and strengths, while simultaneously harboring a profound rejection of the very idea of the West and, in practice, celebrating underdevelopment.

@israelzipper

-Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

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