Over 800 rabbis from around the country signed on to an open letter on Wednesday voicing concern that, if elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani would threaten “the safety and dignity of Jews in every city,” citing the Democratic nominee and front-runner’s antagonistic views towards Israel. 

“As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” wrote the rabbis, representing the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements. 

In the letter, “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future,” spearheaded by The Jewish Majority, signatories called out Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” noted his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state and condemned his repeated accusations that Israel committed genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza. 

“We will not accept a culture that treats Jewish self-determination as a negotiable ideal or Jewish inclusion as something to be ‘granted,’” the letter continued. “The safety and dignity of Jews in every city depend on rejecting that false choice.”

The signatories include the leaders of some of the largest synagogues in New York City, including Rabbi Joshua Davidson, senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El; Rabbi David Gelfand, senior rabbi at Temple Israel of the City of New York; Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, senior rabbi at Kehilath Jeshurun; Rabbi David Ingber, founder of Romemu and senior director of Jewish Life and the Bronfman Center at 92NY; and Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, president of the New York Board of Rabbis and senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. 

The letter, published three days before early voting for the Nov. 4 election begins, comes as some Jewish leaders have expressed frustration over a lack of organized opposition to Mamdani, who leads against his opponents, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

It points to two recent public pleas from prominent New York City rabbis decrying Mamdani.  

“I do not speak for all Jews, but I do represent the views of the large majority of the New York Jewish community, which is increasingly concerned with your statements about Israel and the Jewish people,” Hirsch said in an online video last week, in which he was addressing Mamdani directly.  “Your opposition to Israel is not centered on policies, you reject the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state… I urge you to reconsider your long-held rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Be a uniter and a peacemaker.”

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue said in an address to his congregation last Saturday, “Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely a rhetorical sleight of hand or political naïveté — though it is, to be clear, both of those — his doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes.”

The letter goes on to urge “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.”

It continues, “Now is the time for everyone to unite across political and moral divides, and to reject the language that seeks to delegitimize our Jewish identity and our community.”