Mamdani and the Future of American Jewry
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9 min read
Mamdani’s election signals a turning point for American Jews, pushing us to confront rising hostility, rethink old assumptions, and decide what kind of future we’re building for ourselves and our children.
For nearly eight decades, American Jews experienced a rare sense of security in New York. The city offered law, stability, and boundless opportunity. More than anywhere else, New York embodied the postwar promise that Miss Liberty proclaimed: “Here, you can become what you strive to be; here, the door stands open.”
That door has not slammed shut but it no longer feels fully open. Something essential has shifted. And the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City stands as an urgent warning signal.
New York, the most Jewish city in America, has elected a man who parrots Hamas talking points, repeats the “genocide” libel against Israel, and wraps it all in the language of “social justice.”
The window of what is “acceptable” has moved so far that what once would have ended a political career is now a strategy.
Using antisemitic tropes no longer disqualifies a candidate; it energizes him. Micha Danzig points out that the window of what is “acceptable” has moved so far that what once would have ended a political career is now a strategy.
Mamdani’s victory is not just about one radical politician. It tells us something about the voters, the parties, the media, and the culture that made him possible. It tells us that AOC and the Squad were not political aberrations but the trend. And it reveals where America may be headed in the future.
That’s why this election matters far beyond New York.
For three generations, American Jews lived in what may have been one of the most blessed exiles in our history. No ghetto walls, no yellow badges. Universities and boardrooms flung open. Jewish doctors, lawyers, professors, artists, entrepreneurs helped build the country that had opened its arms.
Jews believed that here, antisemitism is fringe. Here, the system will protect us.
To be sure, Jews said the same thing about Germany; but America is different.
October 7 shattered that illusion. And the Mamdani election shatters it in another way.
After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, “From the river to the sea” became a campus chant. Jewish students barricaded themselves in libraries, mezuzahs were ripped from dorm doors, and mobs surrounded synagogues while universities issued statements about “complexity.”
Now a man who calls Israel “genocidal,” who stands with those who chant for “globalize the intifada,” becomes the mayor of the city that once symbolized our safety.
This is not Warsaw 1938 or Baghdad 1941, but the pattern is painfully familiar.
As Micah Danzig warns, in cities that were once a third Jewish – Warsaw, Minsk, Baghdad, Tripoli – the process was always the same:
what was unspeakable became debatable;
what was debatable became respectable;
what became respectable very quickly became policy.
We are not there but we are much farther along than we were ten years ago.
Many Jews are already reaching for comfort:
There’s truth in some of that. Most Americans are not classical Jew-haters. There are still many allies and decent neighbors.
But there are complex forces at work that make a simple rebound unlikely:
Could American politics swing back on other issues – crime, immigration, economics? Of course. But there is no law of history that says it will swing back for the Jews.
Spain “corrected” itself centuries after expelling its Jews. So did Germany. That did not help the Jews who believed they were permanent citizens of golden eras that suddenly ended.
Jewish history offers a clear lens for moments like this — and it’s remarkably consistent.
The Torah describes the Jewish people with a striking phrase: “Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and is not counted among the nations” (Numbers 23:9).
Originally uttered by Bilaam, a hostile sorcerer hired to curse the Jews, it is a description of Jewish reality across millennia. Not isolated, but distinct. Not better, just different in a way that the surrounding world has never fully absorbed.
And across history, that difference has triggered a familiar mix of fascination, resentment, and projection. Every time Jews convinced themselves they were finally seen as “just like everyone else,<b” reality eventually corrected them.
The Torah calls Abraham “Ha-Ivri,” literally “the one on the other side.” The Midrash explains: “The whole world stood on one side, and Abraham stood on the other.”
Jewish identity begins with a person willing to stand alone when the moral majority lost its bearings. That is not a relic of antiquity. It is a through-line of Jewish history, a reminder that Jewish survival has often depended not on blending in, but on holding firm when the world insists you’re the problem.• When a Society Loses Its Compass
In another episode, Abraham enters a city and immediately fears for his life, not because of crime or politics, but because he senses the culture has stopped valuing basic moral limits. He makes a chilling observation: “There is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me” (Genesis 20:11).
He wasn’t commenting on theology. He was diagnosing a society where the sanctity of human life, truth, and moral limits had lost meaning.
Today, when public rhetoric turns unhinged, when calling Israel “genocidal” becomes a résumé enhancer, when mobs can cheer terrorism without shame, we are witnessing the same kind of moral confusion Abraham confronted.
Jewish history teaches that when societies normalize hostility toward Jews, they are already in ethical free fall.
In every one of these moments, Jews told themselves: “This time is different.”
And it was, until it wasn’t.
Jews need to stop telling themselves that Mamdani is an aberration, that campus mobs are just “kids,” that antisemitic slogans are merely “criticism of policy.”
Thane Rosenbaum has written about the “denial disease” – the Western refusal to recognize evil for what it is. Jews are not immune. We want to believe the system will protect us; that if we’re good citizens, support the right causes, sign the right statements, it will all blow over.
Most American Jews will not be on the next Nefesh B’Nefesh flight, moving to Israel. They have jobs, families, mortgages, aging parents. Saying “it’s over and time to get out” is not realistic for most Jews.
But every Jew today should at least ask:
For some, the answer will be making aliyah, moving to Israel. For others, it may be a staged plan: dual citizenship, stronger ties to Israel, serious thought about where grandchildren will be safest and most Jewish. For all, it should mean shifting from “we are Americans who happen to be Jewish” to “we are Jews whom God has, for now, placed in America with a mission.”
The golden door that opened after the Holocaust was a Divine gift. It is not guaranteed forever.
The “golden era” of American Jewry may well be ending. Not with a bang but a whimper. Not with pogroms and edicts, but with hashtags, primaries, and mayors who embrace our enemies.
This is painful, but not entirely surprising to anyone who has a bird’s eye view of Jewish history.
The golden door that opened after the Holocaust was a Divine gift. It is not guaranteed forever. If its hinges are now creaking, maybe that is also a sign from God, a nudge to remember who you are, where you ultimately belong, and the role you play in the unfolding destiny of the Jewish People.
