Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for New York governor, declined to back away from warnings he made at a weekend event in Brooklyn with Hasidic leaders about the threat of mass arson and sexual assault to their communities — but he specified that he expected the violence would come from anti-Israel protesters.

The New York Times first reported that Blakeman, himself Jewish, had suggested in a private meeting in Williamsburg on Sunday that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani would not intervene “if there is rioting here, if they’re burning down the yeshivas and your shuls, and burning down your house and raping your women.” 

Pressed about the comments in a televised debate with Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday, Blakeman did not deny making them, and clarified that the people he warned of were demonstrators of the sort that occupied colleges and other public spaces following Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza.

“‘They’ are the professional protesters that took over Columbia University, that blocked our bridges and our roadways with the lawlessness that took place,” said Blakeman, asserting that Hochul had failed to adequately protect Jewish students.

But despite pointing to the campus activists who took part in the high-profile encampments, Blakeman also explicitly evoked the Crown Heights riots of 1991. The notorious racial clash saw numerous incidents of Black-on-Jewish violence after a vehicle in the motorcade of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson struck two Black children, killing one.

Blakeman reiterated longstanding complaints that late former Mayor David Dinkins failed to adequately respond to the looting, murders, assaults and property damage.

“I’m talking about political leaders getting involved in law enforcement when they shouldn’t be, what happened under David Dinkins when he waited three days before he stopped the rioting in Crown Heights,” the Republican added.

Blakeman called Mamdani “antisemitic” and “anti-Christian,” and blasted Hochul for maintaining a close political relationship with the mayor.

Hochul, for her part, repeatedly hit Blakeman for rallying with President Donald Trump last week — and accused him of insulting the NYPD and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Hochul has been an advocate for the police chief, a member of one of New York’s most prominent Jewish families, since Tisch’s time in the administration of former Mayor Eric Adams.

“He had a secret meeting where he basically said that NYPD, under the leadership of Jessica Tisch, would not respond to this neighborhood if there are women being raped and people being murdered and riots in the street,” Hochul said. “He would not trust them to show up. I stand with the men and women in blue every day of the week. I know how hard they work. They put their lives on the line. And I support the leadership of Jessica Tisch.”

Blakeman himself quickly added that he was not referring to Tisch, and even lauded the mayor’s decision to retain her over the objections from the far left.

“I have a lot of confidence in Jessica Tisch — matter of fact, if there’s a compliment I could give to Zohran Mamdani, it’s in keeping her as the police commissioner,” Blakeman said.

The exchange took place after several days of demands from the DSA and top Mamdani allies that the mayor fire Tisch over the NYPD’s response to anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests after a federal agent shot a man in Manhattan. Mamdani has so far rebuffed all such demands.