Shockwaves from the Tisha B’Av stabbings on the Upper West Side reverberated through New York’s Jewish and Democratic party elected leadership on Friday, as some blamed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s invective against Israel, while others called more broadly to turn down the temperature on the rhetoric in the city.

Thursday afternoon, a man allegedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed first an Asian American and then a Jewish man near Central Park, a short walk from the second victim’s synagogue. Police quickly captured a suspect, and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported that her department was investigating the attack as a potential hate crime, though she noted that “mental health may have been a factor.” Both victims are in stable condition.

Several politicians, including New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and New York state Attorney General Letitia James offered sympathy to the Jewish community’s fears of a heightened threat environment but took time at a press conference outside the Modern Orthodox Jewish Center — which the second victim had just left — to emphasize the police chief’s statement that a probe into the attacker’s motives remains ongoing. 

Others, meanwhile, took square aim at inflammatory “rhetoric,” though did not say whose rhetoric they meant. The Upper West Side stabbings followed a wave of warnings from Jewish groups that the mayor’s intense, relentless focus on verbally assailing Israel might provoke violence on the streets of New York.

“There is no New York without us. We feel disregarded and disrespected and targeted through hateful rhetoric directed at us, and are undeniably being disproportionately targeted again and again and again,” said New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, drawing a parallel between the holiday’s commemoration of the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and the spike in antisemitic hate crimes in the Big Apple since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. 

“We are demanding that the targeting of the Jewish community, that the singling out of the Jewish community, that the endless demonization of this community stop.”

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams highlighted that the potential mental illness of the alleged perpetrator, Raul Morales, did not preclude his having acted out of hate, or having been influenced by the language of elected leaders. But he, too, declined to mention the mayor by name.

“When people watch the news, when people listen, they hear what we’re saying. And even if you are unfortunately dealing with mental health issues, you too hear what people are saying,” said Williams, the first in the line of succession to Mamdani. “And so I’m just asking all of us, me included, we all have to take stock of what we’re saying and how we’re saying it so we don’t feed what is already in the atmosphere.”

Of the officials who participated in the Jewish Center press conference, only Assemblymember Micah Lasher — who won a primary last month to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) as congressional representative for the Upper West Side — openly called out Mamdani.

“When a place, and by extension the people who are inextricably linked with that place, are singled out, compared to the worst evildoers in human history, blamed for problems half a world away, the space between rhetoric and violence can vanish,” warned Lasher, who endorsed Mamdani in last year’s general election and worked with one of his closest political aides. 

“I beseech all those in a position of power, including our mayor, to hear our cry from the heart, to please help take the temperature down and provide leadership that makes every New Yorker feel safe in this glorious city.”

Jewish religious and community leaders took a much stronger line, openly pointing to the widely viewed video Mamdani released earlier this week attacking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the “architect of a horrific genocide,” and a mass killer and maimer of children. 

“When I was growing up, the only time we saw security outside of my synagogue or outside of my Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak,” said The Jewish Center’s Rabbi Yosie Levine. “Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us.”

Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, also recalled how Mamdani named AIPAC — and AIPAC alone — when telling supporters they must battle “monsters.”

“When the mayor of New York repeatedly uses his platform to relentlessly single out and demonize Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and calls those who support it monsters, he contributes to a climate in which Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly targeted and unsafe,” said Goldstein, himself an Upper West Side resident. “Mayor Mandani, stop fanning the flames of hatred and division. The consequences are not abstract. They’re playing out on our streets.”

Other Democrats, including Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and outgoing Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), openly linked the attack to diatribes against Israel, though without specifically calling out Mamdani. Assemblymember Nily Rozic alluded to Mamdani’s refusal to fully distance himself from and denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which many recognize as a call to reignite the campaigns of Palestinian terrorism carried out under the same name.

“If you can’t fully condemn calls to ‘globalize the intifada,’ you should be prepared to confront the normalizing of that rhetoric. Words inflame, embolden, and lead to violence against Jewish communities,” the Jewish Queens politician wrote on X. “Leaders must reject hate — clearly, consistently, & without qualification.”

However, state Sen. Sam Sutton, a longtime leader in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community, openly pointed blame at Mamdani for having “normalized” violence against Jews.

“When Mayor Mamdani & his allies relentlessly single out & demonize the world’s only Jewish state, they create a climate where antisemitic violence thrives,” the conservative Democrat wrote on X.  “Mr. Mayor, this is on you. The rhetoric must stop. Enough is enough.”

The mayor’s office did not directly answer questions about the criticism of his rhetoric. In an appearance on the local TV station NY1, the mayor praised the NYPD and noted one of the two victims was Asian American. But he maintained his attacks on Netanyahu have nothing to do with the Jewish community in New York.

“They are critiques of a political leader, not of people of a specific faith or a religion or a background, and my responsibility as the mayor of this city is to keep every New Yorker safe, no matter where they come from, what they believe in, or frankly, even if they agree with my politics,” he said. “My job is to keep them safe.”