Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., and President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, struggled to win over skeptical senators of both parties during his confirmation hearing on Thursday as he faced a grilling over his long record of promoting antisemitic ideas and embracing anti-Israel positions as an elected official. 

Ghalib was grilled by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which began when the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), called out his litany of antisemitic comments and denial of sexual violence during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. 

It culminated with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), after questioning Ghalib about his past opposition to the Abraham Accords and support of boycotts against Israel, announcing at the end of the hearing that he would not be able to support his nomination. 

Senators on both sides of the aisle pressed Ghalib over a litany of extremist views and statements he’s made in recent years. In addition to his denial of the scope of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, senators also pointed to past comments he made suggesting that the terrorism itself was justified. They also questioned him over his consistent unwillingness to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and even when pressed at the hearing, resisted recognizing Israel’s place as the Jewish homeland. 

He also faced bipartisan scrutiny over his recent characterization of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator who invaded Kuwait, as a “martyr” — a social media post senators found stunning given that he’s being tapped as ambassador to the country Hussein invaded.

His record of antisemitic commentary was also probed, with senators asking about his liking a comment on Facebook referring to all Jews as “monkeys” and the record of one of his political appointees in Hamtramck who said the Holocaust was “God’s advanced punishment of the chosen people” over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Ghalib also tried to evade responsibility for Hamtramck becoming the first city in the nation to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy against Israel. He claimed he played no formal role in that designation.

Throughout the hearing, Ghalib declined to walk back his comments, repeatedly arguing that what he believes in his “personal capacity” should be distinguished from how he planned to act in his “official capacity” as a U.S. ambassador. “I’m a Semite. The Arabs are Semites. Do we read history? How can we be antisemites? And I think, like I said, judge my actions and not my intentions,” Ghalib said.

Cruz, in the hearing, became the first Republican senator to say he can’t support Ghalib’s nomination. Several other GOP senators on the committee are considering coming out against Ghalib, according to sources familiar with lawmakers’ thinking.

“I believe your beliefs are sincere. I believe that when you became the mayor of the first city in America to pass a BDS resolution, it’s because you believe in BDS,” Cruz said. “What I do not understand is how you could possibly serve as United States ambassador for President Trump in the Middle East when you have passionate views, including having been a vocal opponent of the Abraham Accords, the singular and most consequential accomplishment President Trump has negotiated.”

“Your long-standing views are directly contrary to the views and positions of President Trump and to the position of the United States. I, for one, am not going to be able to support your confirmation,” he continued.

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) who serves on the committee but was not in attendance at the hearing, released a statement after Ghalib’s testimony saying that the Utah senator is “deeply concerned about Mr. Ghalib’s nomination.”

“It is crucial that we expand peace in the Middle East and that begins with the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. Ghalib has demonstrated he is sympathetic to beliefs that run completely contrary to that goal,” the statement read. 

“I think that you have dug your hole deeper today,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Ghalib. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you support the president’s [Middle East peace] plan. Again, this idea that your personal views don’t matter is ridiculous.”

Senators told Ghalib that he was welcome to hold incendiary points of view or embrace those with such beliefs, but that would likely disqualify him for a role representing the United States as ambassador. 

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), a co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, excoriated Ghalib during her opening statement, describing his conduct as unacceptable for a public figure. “As an elected official, you had a responsibility to work with your constituents to eliminate hatred from communities, all hatred from communities, but instead, you chose to inflame divisions and traffic in antisemitism,” Rosen said.

“You liked a Facebook comment comparing Jews to monkeys. You characterize leaders you don’t like as ‘becoming Jewish.’ As mayor, you failed to comment after one of your political appointees suggested the Holocaust was ‘advance punishment’ for the war in Gaza, and you denied the Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war on Oct. 7,” she continued. “You can disagree with the Israeli government, but peddling antisemitism in such a public manner, as an elected official, as a community leader, is beyond the pale.”

Ghalib was asked four times — three by Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and once by Murphy — if he would say that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. “I think everybody, we can coexist in the region, and everybody has the right to exist now,” Ghalib told McCormick after the Pennsylvania senator’s third time asking the question.

Only after Murphy criticized his refusal to answer McCormick’s question did Ghalib respond directly.

“I believe it can be a home for the Jewish and the Arabs and the Muslims and the Christians as well. And that’s why it’s a diverse land for the three major religions,” Ghalib told Murphy, without mentioning Israel by name. “I think they can coexist, all the nations in the Middle East, based on the peace plan of President Trump that I support strongly.”

Murphy pressed Ghalib on his claims that he had condemned the October 2023 comments by Nasr Hussain, a political appointee of his on the Hamtramck Plan Commission, about the Holocaust being “God’s advanced punishment,” noting that Ghalib had not responded to requests from senators for proof that he had distanced himself from Hussain. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also pointed out that Ghalib had expressed support for the Houthis’ November 2023 hijacking of the British-owned Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea, prompting Ghalib to deny he had ever made such a statement. 

Kaine then asked if he was denying that he had authored the social media post with the statement. Ghalib responded by suggesting that he now opposes the attack, and then appeared to accuse the Virginia senator of making “assumptions” and taking his words “out of context.”

“I don’t think it’s a celebration. This is an assumption that [you’re] making. I disagree with attacking the ships and disrupting,” Ghalib said. “I think there was a post, but it seems like it’s taken out of context. Maybe I commented, I don’t know.”

Later on, Cruz grilled Ghalib about a social media post he wrote in 2020 praising the Muslim Brotherhood as “an inspiration” and asked whether his stated support for the group would be a conflict if the Trump administration were to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Ghalib said he would implement the president’s policies, though only after downplaying the group’s extremism.

“I believe that it’s an ideology. It’s not just a group of people. I disagree with a lot of things that they do. Some of them are extremists. Some of them are part of some governments in the Middle East,” Ghalib said of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Shaheen, the top Democrat on the committee, called Ghalib’s expressed beliefs “abhorrent” and said she was “very concerned about some of the statements that you have made, and frankly, what appear to be antisemitic views.” The New Hampshire senator said she took grave offense to Ghalib’s comments claiming that reports of sexual violence by Hamas on Oct. 7 were “lies and deception” and expected him to offer “an unequivocal condemnation of the horrific crimes committed on Oct. 7.”

Ghalib said he had “totally condemned what happened on Oct. 7” after learning of the atrocities, and claimed that he “was not aware” of what “kinds of abuses” Hamas had orchestrated when he made those comments. He also alleged that local media had misrepresented his past social media posts and public comments to make it look like he was antisemitic or supportive of terrorists and dictators. 

“I’m in politics. I understand the press doesn’t always accurately represent what we say,” Shaheen replied. “That doesn’t explain the comments you made to my staff, nor the direct quotes from your hometown news outlet about sexual violence on Oct. 7. The fact that you represented to my staff that there was no documented evidence of that just shows to me a lack of recognition of what was going on.”

The only apology Ghalib offered regarding his past remarks related to his comments about Saddam Hussein, telling senators that he was sorry if his description of the late dictator had caused offense, especially with “those who suffered from Saddam or lost loved ones.” He explained that he was complimenting Hussein for “keeping the Iranian regime in check” after McCormick noted that he served in the 82nd Airborne Division that helped liberate Kuwait from Hussein’s forces.

The White House did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment on the status of Ghalib’s nomination. 

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, confirmed that he would ask Jessica Tisch to stay on as the city’s police commissioner if elected, ending longstanding speculation over his plans for a key role in his potential administration.

Tisch, appointed last year by outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, “took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs,” Mamdani said at the second and final general election debate on Wednesday evening.

“I have said time and again that my litmus test for that position will be excellence, and the alignment will be of that position,” Mamdani added. “And I am confident that under a Mamdani administration, we would continue to deliver on that same mission.”

Mamdani’s choice could assuage concerns among moderate Democrats and other crime-conscious New Yorkers who had been hopeful that he would choose Tisch, a widely respected technocrat who previously led the Department of Sanitation.

Tisch, 44, who is Jewish, has not said whether she would plan to continue in her position if Mamdani is elected on Nov. 4. 

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist and Queens state assemblyman, has faced scrutiny over his past comments on law enforcement — including support for defunding the police. He has moderated during his mayoral campaign and says he no longer backs such efforts, even as he has pledged to pursue some goals that could potentially fuel tension, such as launching a Department of Community Safety “to ensure that mental health experts” instead of police “are responding to the mental health crisis,” he said at the debate. 

Mandani’s opponents, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, also said they would not seek to replace Tisch, though Sliwa, the Republican nominee, said he did not think she would choose to remain in her role if Cuomo or Mamdani is elected. Cuomo, running as an independent, said he did not believe Mamdani would follow through on his promise.

“His position has been to defund, disband the police, she wouldn’t take that,” Cuomo claimed, saying “their philosophies are totally incongruous.”

Elsewhere in the debate Wednesday, Cuomo and Sliwa ramped up their attacks on Mamdani over his strident opposition to Israel and refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” continued sources of concern among Jewish voters.

Cuomo, who has recently escalated his criticism of Mamdani to a more personal level, accused him of stoking “the flames of hatred against Jewish people” during a particularly heated moment at the debate — while Sliwa cast the Democratic frontrunner as an “arsonist who fans the flames of antisemitism.”

Mamdani, playing defense on an issue that represents one of his top vulnerabilities, said that there “is room for disagreement on many positions and many policies,” and pushed back against Sliwa’s claim that he supports “global jihad.”

“I’ve heard from New Yorkers about their fears about antisemitism in this city, and what they deserve is a leader who takes it seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage,” Mamdani said.

The American Jewish Committee raised alarms on Friday about Zohran Mamdani’s “continued use of problematic rhetoric as it relates to Israel and Jews” and called on the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City to “change course” as he prepares for the Nov. 4 election. 

In a lengthy statement, the nonpartisan organization cited, among other things, Mamdani’s repeated claim that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, which the AJC called “unequivocally false and dangerous.” The charge “has not been proven in any international court” and “gives fodder to those who continue to use Israel’s self-defensive actions as an excuse to threaten and attack Jews,” the group said.

The AJC also criticized Mamdani’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, saying that he is upholding an “unacceptable double standard” in his assessment of the region. “Israel is surrounded by Muslim countries,” the group wrote, “yet Mamdani does not continuously suggest that any of those nations should not exist as they are.”

And the organization took issue with what it characterized as Mamdani’s “lack of consistent moral clarity on Hamas,” pointing to a Fox News interview on Wednesday in which he sidestepped a question about whether Hamas should disarm and relinquish its leadership role in Gaza.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist assemblyman who has long been involved in anti-Israel activism, later clarified during the first general election debate on Thursday that Hamas “should lay down” its arms, but he did not share his views on its future role in the conflict.

The AJC, which has also recently highlighted concerns about Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” said in its statement that it feels “compelled to speak out when public figures use rhetoric or endorse policies that harm Jews.”

It urged Mamdani “to engage in dialogue and consultation with organizations and segments of the mainstream New York Jewish community,” with which he has had a tense relationship throughout the campaign and as an elected official in Albany.

“By continuing to prioritize anti-Zionist synagogues and groups, Mamdani ignores the perspectives and concerns of the vast majority of Jewish New Yorkers,” the group said.

Mamdani, who has stepped up his Jewish outreach efforts in recent weeks with limited success, has rejected claims that his views fuel antisemitism and vowed to increase funding to counter hate crimes by 800% if he is elected.

“One of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had over the course of this campaign has been the conversations I’ve had with Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani said at the debate on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment.

Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., and President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, is scheduled for a confirmation hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a delayed step toward confirmation for a nominee whose background and past comments have come under scrutiny.

Ghalib will come before the committee next Thursday, Oct. 23, at the first confirmation hearing the committee has held in more than a month. Ghalib is currently the only nominee on the agenda for that hearing.

The Democratic Hamtramck mayor, who endorsed Trump in the 2024 election and helped him rally support in Michigan’s Arab and Muslim American communities, has a history of anti-Israel commentary, including questioning reports of Hamas atrocities during the Oct. 7 attacks and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, as well as liking antisemitic posts on social media.

The Anti-Defamation League has said Ghalib’s nomination should be withdrawn. “Ghalib routinely traffics in antisemitism, actively supports the antisemitic BDS movement, attempted to justify the 10/7 massacre and refused to take disciplinary action against an appointee who attempted to justify the Holocaust,” the group said on X in March.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) told reporters that the nomination had been delayed as lawmakers gathered additional information about Ghalib and his background via written questions.

Ghalib announced publicly after such reports that Trump had called him to emphasize his continued support even as “some parties have hindered this appointment.”

Ghalib will likely face questions about his record at the hearing.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, expressed disagreement on Thursday with comments by Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who has said “America deserved 9/11,” after several months in which the state assembly member had declined to condemn such rhetoric.

“I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible,” Mamdani said during the first general election debate on Thursday night, where he traded barbs with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is trailing in the polls as he mounts an independent run following his primary loss to Mamdani in June.

Still, Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, defended his decision to appear on Piker’s show for an extensive interview during the primary — even as the streamer has otherwise frequently stirred controversy for using antisemitic rhetoric in his commentary on Israel and Jewish issues. 

“I also think that part of the reason why Democrats are in the situation that we are in, of being a permanent minority in this country, is we are looking only to speak to journalists and streamers and Americans with whom we agree on every single thing that they say,” Mamdani argued, while making no mention of Piker’s antisemitic comments. “We need to take the case to every person, and I am happy to do that.”

Piker has faced criticism for justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and forcefully denying some of the terror group’s atrocities — including widespread reports of sexual violence. In one notable stream last year, Piker said “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7,” while adding that “the Palestinian resistance is not perfect.” He has also described Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and compared Zionists to Nazis, among other slurs seen as antisemitic.

Elsewhere during the debate, Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel who was arrested in October 2023 during a ceasefire demonstration outside the Brooklyn home of then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), declined to confirm that he would not participate in protests if he is elected mayor. “The important thing is to lead from City Hall,” Mamdani said. “That’s what I’ll be doing.”

Mamdani had faced intense backlash before the debate for comments during a Fox News interview released on Wednesday in which he avoided directly answering a question about whether Hamas should disarm and relinquish its leadership role in Gaza. He clarified at the debate that Hamas, as well as “all parties,” “should lay down” their arms but did not comment on its future role in the conflict.  

“I’m proud to be one of the first elected officials in the state who called for a ceasefire, and calling for a ceasefire means ceasing fire,” Mamdani said. “That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons. And the reason that we call for that is not only for the end of the genocide, but also an unimpeded access of humanitarian aid.”

He added that “we also have to ensure that [the ceasefire] addresses the conditions that preceded this, conditions like occupation, like the siege and apartheid, and that is what I’m hopeful for.”

Mamdani, who has seen mixed results in his continued outreach to the Jewish community, also once again refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” — even as he reiterated that it “evokes many painful memories” for Jewish voters and reiterated he will “discourage” its usage.

Zohran Mamdani isn’t the only far-left, anti-Israel candidate running for mayor in a city with a notable Jewish constituency in November. As we’ve noted in these pages, socialist Katie Wilson is vying to unseat Mayor Bruce Harrell in the Seattle mayoral race. And far-left challenger Omar Fateh is running competitively against Mayor Jacob Frey in a closely watched Minneapolis mayoral contest.

But one lower-profile race featuring a Democratic Socialists of America activist with involvement in anti-Israel groups has flown under the radar. In the progressive city of Somerville, Mass. — just outside Boston and bordering Cambridge — City Councilor Willie Burnley Jr. advanced to a runoff against another city council member, Jake Wilson. 

In the city’s first round of balloting, which ousted the city’s sitting mayor, Katjana Ballantyne, Wilson finished first with 42% of the citywide vote, but Burnley wasn’t far behind with 34%. Ballantyne, facing a backlash to the city’s rising housing costs, lagged in third place with just 23% of the vote.

If Burnley prevails, he would be the city’s first Black, openly queer and polyamorous mayor, according to Axios.

But Burnley’s unconventional self-identification pales in comparison to his radical record. He’s been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and has been active in the organization for at least the last several years. He has participated in anti-Israel protests, including one where he is standing in front of a protester holding a sign with a Nazi swastika flag next to an Israeli flag. At a Tufts University anti-Israel protest last year, he posed in front of posters reading “Glory to the martyrs.”

He has touted his endorsement from the anti-Israel group “Somerville for Palestine” and walked out on a Jewish constituent objecting to the city council’s consideration of a measure that would require Somerville to divest city funds business from companies that do business with Israel. In 2018, he was pictured being involved with the anti-Israel group IfNotNow.

Unsurprisingly, Burnley holds extremist views on other major issues of consequence, most notably supporting efforts to defund the police and describing the founders of the United States as “genocidal, racist, rapists who stole this country because they wrote some nice words.”

Burnley’s surprising advancement to the general election is another sign of the growth of far-left politics within the Democratic Party — particularly in urban centers. While the first round of results suggests that the more-experienced Wilson starts as the favorite, the fact that someone with Burnley’s extreme politics is in the running and could win one-third of the vote is alarming.

As progressives have gained traction in local races across the country, Katie Wilson, a self-described socialist now mounting a formidable bid for mayor of Seattle, has increasingly drawn comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City whose primary upset in June stunned the national political establishment.

Like Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblyman, Wilson, the co-founder and executive director of Seattle’s Transit Riders Union, took political observers by surprise when she handily led the August “jungle” primary with just over 50% of the vote — defeating the moderate incumbent mayor, Bruce Harrell, by a nearly 10-point margin.

Wilson, in her early 40s, is preparing to face Harrell once again in the Nov. 4 election, where analysts say she is now well-positioned to oust the first-term mayor. Harrell has struggled not only to land on a vision that resonates with voters but to effectively articulate an argument against his upstart challenger, who has focused on a populist message of affordability that Mamdani has also championed throughout his own campaign.

But while her record of commentary on Israel and the war in Gaza is far more limited than Mamdani, who has long been an outspoken critic of the Jewish state, many Jewish leaders in Seattle are expressing concern over Wilson’s statements about the conflict amid what they describe as a lack of outreach from her campaign with just five weeks until the election.

In a handful of recent remarks, Wilson has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza — a characterization that Jewish leaders and community activists have found troubling as voter sympathy for the Jewish state, especially in the progressive Seattle area, has sharply declined.

“I am strongly opposed to the genocide in Gaza,” Wilson said in a comment posted to social media in August. “As mayor of Seattle, my ability to end the violence is limited, but I will do everything I can to end the suffering of Palestinians and guarantee the safety of Muslims, Jews, and people of all faiths and backgrounds in Seattle.”

Meanwhile, Wilson has suggested that she is “open to divestment” if Seattle “has investments that are indirectly supporting Israel’s actions,” according to an email response to a person who asked about her stances on Israel that was posted to social media in July. 

Elsewhere in the note, Wilson said that she was “familiar with the ‘end the deadly exchange’ efforts of a few years ago and think that’s something that could be done through executive action,” referring to a movement seeking to prohibit American police officers from training with Israeli law enforcement officials. The American Jewish Committee has accused the campaign of helping to fuel an antisemitic trope suggesting Israel is responsible for American police brutality.

Regina Sassoon Friedland, regional director of the American Jewish Committee’s Seattle office, echoed a range of Jewish community leaders in taking issue with Wilson’s rhetoric on Israel.

“While AJC does not endorse or oppose candidates, it should be noted that claims of genocide against Israel lack factual or legal foundation,” Friedland told Jewish Insider on Tuesday. “Not only are such accusations baseless, but they distort realities on the ground when no mention is made of Hamas, whose announced purpose is annihilating Israel.”

In addition to her comments, some Jewish community leaders say they are discouraged by Wilson’s relationships with anti-Israel activists including Kshama Sawant, a former far-left Seattle city councilmember who has faced accusations of stoking antisemitism. Wilson also claimed an endorsement from CAIR Action, a political advocacy group affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executive director has drawn condemnation for praising Hamas.

A recently established political action committee called The Kids Table, which seeks to promote “pro-Jewish candidates for state and local office” in Washington state and is led by a group of Jewish millennial activists, claimed that Wilson has “allied herself with vitriolic anti-Jewish candidates” and “talked about focusing city resources on foreign affairs issues, rather than on local ones, including the urgent problem of Jewish safety and security in Seattle.”

“Time and time again we hear deep concern about Katie Wilson’s candidacy,” the group told JI of its conversations with the Jewish community, adding she did not respond to a “candidate questionnaire about antisemitism and extremism” that had been sent to her campaign and was filled out by Harrell.

Even as Wilson has only glancingly weighed in on Israel throughout the race, where strategists say it has not been a prominent issue for many voters, the broader organized Jewish community has otherwise observed a distinct absence of engagement from her campaign. 

The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, for one, has not heard from her, several members told JI.

Scott Prange, an at-large member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle, said he was “not personally aware that Wilson has made any outreach to the Jewish community in Seattle.”

“And at a time when, especially in Seattle, antisemitism runs rampant amongst the left in the wake of post-Oct. 7 rhetoric and propaganda,” he told JI on Tuesday, “she has only fanned the flames by echoing hollow narratives about Israeli genocide in Gaza and calling for divestment of any city funds invested in Israel.”

Jack Gottesman, president of Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue in Seattle that includes around 300 families, said he “would welcome the opportunity to meet with Katie Wilson, but to date I have not seen meaningful outreach from her or her campaign to the Jewish community.”

“Jews have been part of Seattle’s fabric for well over 100 years, and it is important that candidates engage respectfully with all communities,” he told JI this week. “Her description of the situation in Gaza as a genocide was a mischaracterization. These are complex issues that demand depth, not slogans. I hope she recognizes the weight of her words.”

Wilson’s campaign did not respond to numerous interview requests from JI over several weeks.

In contrast with Wilson, Harrell, who was elected in 2021, has maintained what Jewish leaders largely called a strong voice in support of Israel and against rising antisemitic violence. Nevet Basker, a co-chair of Washingtonians for a Brighter Future, a separate pro-Israel PAC that has endorsed Harrell, said that the local Jewish community “appreciates” his “clear opposition to antisemitism.”

“We recognize the immense challenges the mayor has faced” and “applaud his commitment to ensure that all Seattle residents and visitors are safe and welcome,” Basker told JI in a statement. 

Rob Spitzer, the president of B’nai B’rith International and a vice chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, said Harrell “has reached out” and “is generally supported by the community,” while recalling “meetings with him and his police and security team about protecting the Jewish community and our institutions.”

The Kids Table, for its part, countered that Harrell “has failed to meet this moment of crisis for the Jewish community,” noting that “pro-Palestinian protestors blocked the interstate for six hours and weren’t cleared or charged, and ‘kill your local colonizer’ was spraypainted on statues at the mayor’s alma mater, with zero comment from his office.”

Still, the group told JI in a statement, “Wilson’s candidacy, alliances with anti-Jewish figures and organizations, and lack of engagement have many Seattle Jews very worried about the next four years.”

Harrell’s campaign also did not respond to requests from JI for an interview.

While he has sought to connect Wilson to the movement to defund the police, which she says is not her goal, Harrell has avoided commenting on her approach to Israel, underscoring the shifting political dynamics around views that until recently would likely have been seen as too extreme for the Democratic Party but have now become acceptable to many voters.

Despite concerns from Jewish community leaders, Israel “hasn’t been front and center” in the race as a “topic of discussion or debate,” Sandeep Kaushik, a political consultant in Seattle who is not involved in either campaign, told JI. 

Kaushik attributed Wilson’s unexpected rise in part to what he called the “Mamdani effect” and said she is the “front-runner,” even as he expects “the general election war is about to start” as pro-Harrell outside spending flows into the race and attacks ramp up in the final weeks.

“I think the mayor is now fighting for his political life,” Kaushik said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ decision on Sunday to drop out of his race for reelection was met with a mix of tempered hope and continued resignation among political consultants and Jewish community leaders who have long been waiting for an opening to block Zohran Mamdani, the front-runner and Democratic nominee.

In choosing to suspend his campaign for a second term with just five weeks remaining until the Nov. 4 election, Adams, the scandal-scarred mayor who had been running as an independent, may not offer the escape hatch that many Mamdani critics have been hoping for.

Adams, a deeply unpopular mayor whose tenure in office had been marred by a series of damaging corruption scandals and accusations that he had become cozy with the Trump administration, will remain on the ballot. And Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee polling ahead of Adams, reiterated on Sunday that he will stay in the race, rejecting calls for him to step aside and help to clear the field for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who is also running as an independent after badly losing the June Democratic primary.

But some critics of Mamdani, a democratic socialist and Queens state assemblyman leading in the polls, suggested that the consolidated field could now move previously reluctant donors to invest in a late-stage effort to help bolster Cuomo — who had been casting the race as a two-man contest with Mamdani even before Adams ended his campaign.

“Sentiment among some major donors had been that unless the field started to narrow, they were going to keep their powder relatively dry,” Jake Dilemani, a Democratic strategist who was involved in Cuomo’s primary bid, told Jewish Insider. “With Adams out, that dynamic starts to change, pressure will mount on Sliwa to drop his bid, and dollars will follow.”

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist who is leading an anti-Mamdani super PAC called Protect the Protectors, said Cuomo “can win only if there are independent committees that are talking about” Mamdani’s far-left positions and “how they are dangerous to New York.”

“Failure to do that means Mamdani will win,” he told JI, while noting Cuomo’s “argument that he is more experienced isn’t working,” demonstrated by his negative voter ratings in polls.

Sheinkopf speculated that new donors could now be energized to open their checkbooks if they are convinced, as he believes, that a Cuomo victory will require outside groups, which have struggled to raise money even as they have begun to place ads in recent weeks, work on chipping away at Mamdani’s relatively favorable polling numbers.

“You can knock Mamdani to 30 or below,” Sheinkopf predicted. Recent surveys have shown Mamdani’s favorability ratings in the mid to high 40s.

Another political consultant who is involved in a separate anti-Mamdani super PAC, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address the current state of the race, said he is “hopeful that the donors who were sitting on the sidelines will now become more active,” but he had no details to share about any new movement on that front. 

The consultant acknowledged that Sliwa’s choice to remain in the race, threatening to peel support from Cuomo, “is certainly an impediment, but hopefully not a major one,” suggesting that “Cuomo can get a lot of Sliwa’s vote.”

Chris Coffey, a Democratic consultant who helped to advise Cuomo’s primary campaign, said that the race had been “frozen” until Adams finally dropped out on Sunday. “Both donors and reporters spent three-plus weeks on whether Eric would drop out,” he told JI. “Now he has. It’s still going to be uphill for Cuomo but to have any shot, he needed Eric out and he’s out.” 

“If donors and press now turn to Curtis, that won’t help Cuomo,” Coffey continued. “I’d expect to see national and local GOP push folks to Cuomo. That’s a double-edged sword but again, he needs it to have a meaningful shot.”

Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser who had been backing Adams’ bid, said that he is now supporting Cuomo and believes that Sliwa “needs to get out” if the former governor has any chance of prevailing in the race. 

While he did not anticipate that Sliwa — whose campaign said in a statement on Sunday that he “is the only candidate who can defeat Mamdani” — will likely step aside, Levine called on GOP leadership in New York to urge him to drop out and help clear the field for Cuomo.

“He was a terrible governor, he’s an even worse person and will be a horrible mayor,” Levine said of Cuomo. “But compared to Mamdani,” the choice is easy, he told JI, citing the nominee’s hostile stances toward Israel that have fueled concern among many Jewish community leaders. 

“The city is heading for a world of hurt, and any Republican who thinks that it’s a good idea to have Mamdani be the new face of the Democratic Party is too cynical for me,” Levine, a Republican Jewish Coalition board member, said on Sunday.

Cuomo, for his part, praised the mayor’s decision to ultimately drop out of the race, as he had called on Adams to do. “The choice Eric Adams made today was not an easy one, but I believe he is sincere in putting the well-being of New York City ahead of personal ambition,” the former governor said in a statement on Sunday. “We face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance, but it is not too late to stop them.”

But while Cuomo’s campaign hopes to gain new backing from Black and Orthodox Jewish voters who were behind Adams, the mayor himself did not offer an endorsement, even if his announcement left open the possibility he could end up taking a side in the race. Adams otherwise warned, in a veiled swipe at Mamdani, that “insidious forces” are now seeking to “advance divisive agendas.”

“Major change is welcome and necessary,” Adams said in his announcement posted to social media on Sunday. “But beware of those who claim the answer is to destroy the very system we built together over generations.” 

Leon Goldbenberg, an Orthodox leader in Brooklyn who is an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition and had been backing Adams, said that he was encouraged by the mayor’s choice to suspend his campaign. “At this point, it’s more of a horse race,” he told JI, predicting Cuomo will see solid support in the Orthodox community as it seeks to register new voters ahead of the election.

“I think that you are going to see a tremendous turnout in the Orthodox community,” Goldenberg said. “Whether it makes a difference or not, I can’t tell you.”

Some activists in the broader organized Jewish community were less confident that the campaign shake-up on Sunday would meaningfully influence the outcome of a race that Mamdani has continued to dominate. 

One Jewish leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address private discussions, said it was “too soon yet” to conclude if a critical mass of new donors would now be motivated to step up to help oppose Mamdani. “But new conversations are happening.”

Another Jewish leader who fears a Mamdani win, and also spoke on the condition of anonymity, was far less sanguine about Adams’ decision. “It doesn’t make a difference,” the Jewish leader told JI, while referring to such remaining obstacles as Sliwa and the mayor’s name still appearing on voters’ ballots.

A credible effort to beat Mamdani “would require about $10 to $15 million to make a difference,” the Jewish leader estimated. “I just don’t know that we have that chance.”

With that in mind, “the best thing that I’m hoping for is that we can keep him under 50%,” the Jewish leader said of Mamdani, “to make him govern from a minority position and not a mandated position.”

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, attended his first Rosh Hashanah service on Monday night at a Brooklyn synagogue well-known for its anti-Zionist activism.

The visit to Kolot Chayeinu, a nondenominational synagogue in Park Slope that has drawn controversy over its anti-Zionist orientation, comes as Mamdani is seeking to engage in increased outreach to Jewish voters ahead of the November election.

But the venue choice also underscores his polarizing position in the broader Jewish community — where many Jewish leaders have continued to raise alarms over his anti-Israel policies and refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” among other issues.

Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel who has identified as anti-Zionist, was warmly received at the Monday service, where he sat in the front row in a mask and a yarmulke beside Brad Lander, the city comptroller who is a member of Kolot Chayeinu.

Lander, a close ally of Mamdani, recently described the congregation, which was one of the first to call for an early ceasefire in October 2023, as a meeting point for anti-Zionist Jews and progressive Zionists like himself.

The synagogue, which maintains an “open tent” policy on Israel and Palestine, has faced criticism for promoting anti-Israel views in its Hebrew school curriculum in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. 

In one particularly controversial  lesson, students were instructed to write a letter of apology rebuking their Jewish “ancestors” for taking Palestinian land, fueling concerns among parents who objected to the politicized assignment.

A rabbi at Kolot Chayeinu, Abby Stein, who is a member of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, also drew scrutiny for attending a meeting in New York City last year with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, days before the Islamic Republic launched a missile attack against Israel.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and assemblyman from Queens, did not deliver remarks at the Monday evening service. During his sermon, the rabbi accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, a claim that Mamdani has frequently made.

Mamdani is now expected to appear at other Jewish institutions during the High Holidays, including a mainstream congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side — where he could face a less welcoming audience skeptical of his hostile views toward Israel.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment about his planned outreach to the Jewish community.

As Jewish leaders reckon with the increasing likelihood that Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, many who have voiced anxiety over his avowedly anti-Israel policies are reacting with a mix of fear and resignation.

Their concerns have been mounting as Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, has continued to hold a comfortable lead in the race, where polling shows him handily prevailing over the divided field. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and Queens state assemblyman has recently claimed endorsements from prominent party leaders including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who clarified she does not agree with him on Israel issues but said she appreciated his commitment to combating antisemitism as well as his efforts to meet with Jewish community members to address “their concerns directly.”

But multiple Jewish leaders said in interviews with Jewish Insider on Wednesday that they remain deeply skeptical of his campaign’s outreach and pledges to confront rising antisemitism, citing a string of recent statements in which he has doubled down on his hostile approach to Israel — as well as an ongoing refusal to explicitly denounce extreme rhetoric espoused by his allies on the far left.

While Mamdani has, since winning the primary in June, walked back some of his polarizing views on key issues such as policing, he has otherwise made an exception for Israel, of which he has long been a fierce critic. In a series of interviews published last week, for instance, he reiterated a campaign vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if elected, even as legal experts cautioned such a move could violate federal law. 

A vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — which some critics deem antisemitic — he said he would end a program established by Mayor Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent, to foster business partnerships between companies in Israel and New York City. He also said he would stop relying on the working definition of antisemitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — which labels some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — as was adopted by Adams in a recent executive order.

And although he has said he would discourage activists from invoking the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which he himself has not used publicly, Jewish leaders have noted that Mamdani has still not condemned the phrase itself, fueling suspicion that he tacitly approves of the chant critics interpret as a call to antisemitic violence.

“I believe that he will genuinely work to drive a wedge between Jews and their neighbors as long as he serves in public office,” Sara Forman, executive director of New York Solidarity Network, a group that supports pro-Israel Democratic candidates for state and local office, told JI. “To this date,” she said of Mamdani, “his actions certainly have given us no indication they match his words.”

Andres Spokoiny, who leads the Jewish Funders Network but emphasized that he was speaking only in his personal capacity, said that he was “extremely concerned and extremely fearful” about what he regards as a likely Mamdani mayoralty. “His views make the majority of Jews unsafe and unwelcome,” he told JI.

More broadly, Spokoiny said his worries had less to do with particular policies than what he called “the breaking of a taboo” around anti-Zionist sentiment that did not ultimately serve as an “impediment” to Mamdani’s rise, even in a place that is home to the largest Jewish community of any city in the world. “That fact that it is in New York is highly symbolic,” he said. “It shows that our society doesn’t have the antibodies to reject somebody with a very divisive message.”

He also voiced regret about a lack of unity in the organized Jewish community to collectively oppose Mamdani and coalesce behind one candidate in the race, which includes former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running on an independent line, and Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee. “I think it asks for a deep rethinking in the Jewish community about how we face this challenge,” he said. 

While Mamdani has won backing from some Jewish elected officials in New York, notably Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), others have continued to keep the nominee at a safe distance with just weeks until November. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has withheld an endorsement of Mamdani despite meeting privately with him, as has Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who said last month he is waiting for the nominee to take “concrete steps” to address antisemitic hate crimes. 

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

Simone Kanter, a spokesperson for Goldman, said on Wednesday that the congressman had “nothing new to add yet beyond what he’s already said” about Mamdani.

During his campaign, Mamdani has more actively aligned with groups on the far left including Jewish Voice for Peace, which is anti-Zionist, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which hosted a recent gala at which the nominee was celebrated alongside Brad Lander, the Jewish comptroller with whom he cross-endorsed in the primary.

Even as Mamdani has engaged in outreach to the Jewish community to address concerns about his platform, among other issues, some Jewish leaders indicated they did not anticipate there would be any common ground on which to develop a relationship with a potential Mamdani administration.

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

By contrast, Berger argued of his colleague in the state legislature, Mamdani “hasn’t done the bare minimum with long-recognized Jewish institutions and leaders, instead relying on his support from the fringe of the fringe,” which he called “a major red flag.”

“Fixing potholes is typically apolitical,” he told JI, “but [when] the point of contention is the uplifting of baseless hatred against the Jewish people there is no common ground to be had.”

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

Simcha Eichenstein, a Democratic assemblyman from the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn, was equally pessimistic about Mamdani. 

“We can agree to disagree when it comes to policy matters, but as a visible Jew, I should be able to walk the streets of New York City safely, without fear of harassment,” he told JI on Wednesday. 

“The inability and unwillingness of a candidate running to represent nearly a million Jews to denounce radical, extreme and antisemitic groups have many within the Jewish community wondering whether we have a future in New York at all,” Eichenstein added, citing as an example the radical pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, which has led at least one protest that was attended by Mamdani in 2021. 

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

“His lunatic threat to arrest Netanyahu, when he is surely not stupid enough to believe he has that power, is a sign to the Jew haters that he stands with them,” Yeger added, claiming Mamdani “will, by his words, his actions and his inactions, cause continued increasing antisemitism” in New York City.

Mamdani has forcefully rejected accusations he has fomented antisemitism, vowing to increase funding to counter hate crimes by 800%. A spokesperson for his campaign did not return a request for comment from JI on Wednesday.

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS. As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed.”

Leon Goldenberg, a Brooklyn real estate executive who is an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had no interest in meeting with Mamdani — despite that he expects him to win the election. “What I really have a problem with is ‘globalize the intifada,’” he told JI on Wednesday. “You can’t condemn it. ‘Globalize the intifada’ is murder Jews on the streets.”

Goldenberg, who endorsed Adams in the general election but now believes he has no chance, said he was considering moving his permanent residence to Florida, where he keeps an apartment, if Mamdani prevails this fall. “He’s bright. I’m not going to take that away from him,” he said of the nominee. “But there’s very little that qualifies him to be mayor. If he had a different mindset, he’d be a great mayor.”

Despite their concerns about a potential Mamdani administration, few Jewish leaders were ready to speculate about working with him. 

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS.” 

“As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed,” Rosenthal told JI.

Other Jewish leaders pointed to ongoing voter registration efforts to boost Jewish turnout in the election. Josh Mehlman, who chairs the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had helped register more than 5,000 new Democratic voters in the Orthodox community in the last week alone. He did not respond when asked if he felt the increase in registrations would have any discernible impact on the outcome of the mayoral race.

Joel Rosenfeld, a representative of the influential Bobov Hasidic sect, also stressed his community “is fully focused on voter registration” in the lead-up to the election. Asked if he had anything else to add on the matter, Rosenfeld said, “A blessed new year,” ahead of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Still, there are signs that some Hasidic groups may now be cautiously — and quietly — warming up to a potential future Mamdani administration, even if it remains unlikely that any groups will endorse him, community members say. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

One Jewish community activist familiar with the matter said that “there are some groups secretly talking to” Mamdani “or his top people,” though he added it was “hard to believe any groups will openly endorse him, especially if Adams is still in the race.”

“The feeling is that like it or not he is most likely going to be the next mayor so we might as well begin a dialogue now rather than after the election,” he told JI.

Another activist familiar with a Satmar faction in Williamsburg, which represents the largest Hasidic voting bloc in New York City, said that Mamdani’s team is “aggressively courting” the community and has been in dialogue with leadership. “They want to work with us and we want to work with them,” the activist said in summarizing the dynamic, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive situation. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) announced on Monday that he would not endorse Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.

Suozzi, who represents a Long Island-based swing district on the outskirts of New York City that takes in a slice of Queens, said in an interview with ABC7 that, while he believes Mamdani is “very talented” and “very smart,” he feels the Democratic mayoral candidate’s policies would lead to increased costs for New Yorkers.

“Let me say very clearly: Mamdani is a very talented guy. He’s very smart, he’s very charismatic. … I have nothing against him personally, and I’m sure he’s a good person, but I completely disagree with his ideas. I disagree that we should raise taxes in New York City because people are leaving New York State and New York City as it is,” Suozzi said. “I’m all for making sure wealthy people pay their fair share at the federal level, so that wherever you go in the country you’re still going to have to pay, but not to encourage people to escape New York and go to Florida and go to Texas.”

“He wants to raise the minimum wage in New York. Well, I’m all for giving people higher wages. I like raising the minimum wage, but we need to do it at the national level, not just at the local level, and chase people out,” he added, noting that lawmakers “don’t want to chase people out of New York.” 

Suozzi’s announcement comes one day after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul endorsedMamdani’s candidacy, emerging as one of his highest-profile backers. 

In a subsequent post on X, Suozzi wrote that, “I will not be endorsing Mamdani. While I share his concern about the issue of affordability, I fundamentally disagree with his proposed solutions. Like the voters I represent, I believe socialism has consistently failed to deliver real, sustainable progress.”

He added that, “People have asked me about the Governor’s decision. I have not discussed this with the Governor and I am not in a position to give the Governor political advice considering the fact that when I ran against her she beat me soundly.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is rebuking a top mayoral candidate in Minneapolis, far-left state Sen. Omar Fateh, who has recently faced criticism for employing campaign staffers who have glorified Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, blamed Israel for the war in Gaza and called for the destruction of the Jewish state, among other extreme comments.

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Wednesday, a spokesperson for Klobuchar, who is backing Fateh’s chief rival, Mayor Jacob Frey, said that the senator “strongly and immediately condemned the Hamas terrorist attack, and condemns any statements to the contrary.”

“These comments are outrageous and have no place in our politics,” the spokesperson, Jane Meyer, said of the staffers’ remarks, which were unearthed by JI last week. “She has spoken out against antisemitism for years. She has endorsed the mayor and did so months ago.”

Klobuchar, who along with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is the most high-profile Democratic official supporting Frey’s campaign for a third term, had until now remained silent with regard to Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist whose insurgent bid has drawn comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor.

Meyer declined a request for comment from JI last Friday but ultimately shared a statement this week after Fateh drew backlash from, among others, the local Jewish Community Relations Council, which called into question his commitment to addressing Jewish safety concerns as he tolerates staffers who “traffic in antisemitism” and act as “apologists” for Hamas.

Fateh, who pledged to boycott the JCRC in a recent candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, has not yet addressed the staffers’ rhetoric, significantly more extreme than his own public stances on Israel and Gaza.

While he has accused Israel of genocide and voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, Fateh’s communications manager, Ayana Smith-Kooiman, has endorsed the Hamas attacks as a justified act of “resistance” and declared that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” among several other now-deleted social media posts reviewed by JI.

In addition, David Gilbert-Pederson, a local political activist and City Council aide who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings, has unreservedly praised Hamas’ violence against Israel. Speaking in December 2023, Gilbert-Pederson celebrated “what happened collectively for the people of Palestine on Oct. 7” and said supporters of the Palestinian cause must “stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression.”

Despite Klobuchar’s new condemnation of such rhetoric, most of Frey’s leading allies in the hotly contested mayoral race have so far refrained from commenting on the situation. Representatives for Walz have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the staffers or Fateh’s acceptance of their views.

Prominent Democratic officials who have not taken sides in the race have likewise declined to weigh in on the matter.

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. 

The state senator is set to host a “Jews for Fateh” fundraiser early next month, according to an event page, which notes that attendees will learn about his “campaign’s movement to build a city that leaves no one behind.”

Leading elected officials in Minnesota are remaining silent in response to a top Minneapolis mayoral candidate, far-left state Sen. Omar Fateh, whose campaign has faced scrutiny for employing staffers who have celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and called for Israel’s destruction, among other extreme views he has yet to publicly address.

Fateh, a 35-year-old Democratic socialist, now employs a campaign communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman, who, in now-deleted social comments recently unearthed by Jewish Insider, has endorsed the Hamas attacks as a justified act of “resistance,” said Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” and amplified a comment dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda,” according to screenshots. 

Meanwhile, David Gilbert-Pederson, a local political activist and City Council aide who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings, has unreservedly praised the Oct. 7 attacks, insisting in remarks on a December 2023 panel discussion that supporters of the Palestinian cause must “stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression.”

But even as some of the state’s leading Democratic lawmakers have endorsed Fateh’s rival, incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, who is seeking a third term, they have so far declined to weigh in on the staffers’ comments and Fateh’s decision to hire them, which has raised questions about his acceptance of extreme rhetoric on a particularly sensitive issue.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Gov. Tim Walz, who are Frey’s most high-profile backers in what is expected to be a hotly contested race, both avoided addressing the matter to JI. A spokesperson for Klobuchar declined to comment on Friday, and representatives for Walz did not return multiple requests for comment.

Prominent Democratic officials who have not taken sides in the mayoral contest also did not respond to requests for comment — including Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor who is now running for U.S. Senate, and Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a pro-Israel lawmaker also seeking to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN). A spokesperson for the senator did not respond to a message seeking comment about Fateh.

The muted responses underscore an increasing reluctance among many Democratic elected officials and public figures to speak out against extremist or antisemitic language related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

In Minneapolis, only one of the three City Council members who have endorsed Frey’s reelection bid was open to weighing in on the matter, denouncing the campaign staffers as well as Fateh’s judgement for choosing to employ them.

“Defending the Oct. 7 terrorist attack is disgraceful, and it’s embarrassing that Sen. Fateh is OK with this behavior,” Linea Palmisano, a Democratic councilwoman, told JI on Friday. “Who mayors surround themselves with matters, and anyone who stands by these remarks isn’t ready for the job.”

LaTrisha Vetaw and Michael Rainville, the other Council members supporting Frey, did not return requests for comment.

While Fateh himself has not used the same rhetoric as his allies, the state legislator has been a staunch critic of Israel — calling for a ceasefire 10 days after the Hamas attacks and accusing Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza. 

Fateh has also voiced his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, which some critics have accused of stoking antisemitism, and has pledged not to engage with the local Jewish Community Relations Council, according to a candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a supporter of his campaign.

In the document, portions of which were recently obtained by JI, Fateh vowed to “refrain from any and all affiliation” with the JCRC, which the DSA dismissed as a “Zionist lobby group” akin to AIPAC, J Street and Christians United for Israel — even as the group is nonpartisan and represents the Jewish community to Minneapolis government officials.

Fateh did not share an explanation for his answer despite space to do so, according to the document reviewed by JI. 

Steve Hunegs, executive director of the JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas, sharply criticized the state senator’s responses to the DSA in a statement to JI on Friday, while questioning his commitment to combating antisemitism.

“Sen. Fateh’s campaign slogan promises a ‘city that works for everyone,’” Hunegs said. “But how can Sen. Fateh be understood as anything other than a divider when he’s pledged to boycott Jewish organizations? Likewise, how can Jews feel that our safety will be a priority when Sen. Fateh’s staff traffic in antisemitism? As proud Jews we aren’t going to allow Sen. Fateh, the DSA or Hamas apologists drive us from the public square.”

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Fateh, who assumed office in 2021 as the first Muslim and first Somali American to serve in the Minnesota state Senate, won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Frey, who has challenged the results. 

The mayor, 44, is the second Jewish mayor to represent Minneapolis and has been increasingly outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ attacks, while opposing some resolutions on Israel in the City Council that he has dismissed as one-sided. He has also been a critic of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Two political activists closely affiliated with Omar Fateh, a far-left Minnesota state senator who is now running for mayor of Minneapolis, have expressed a range of extreme views on the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, endorsing the violence as a justified act of resistance and accusing Israel of initiating the war in Gaza, among other inflammatory comments.

Their rhetoric could fuel concerns among local Jewish leaders who sounded alarms about Fateh’s close alliances with anti-Israel activists after he won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Jacob Frey, the incumbent seeking a third and final term. Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign has recently drawn comparisons to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, has likewise been a staunch critic of Israel, calling its conduct in Gaza a genocide and pushing for a ceasefire 10 days after Hamas’ attack.

In a mayoral candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America — which endorsed his bid after facing widespread criticism over its response to the Oct. 7 attack — Fateh also backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, according to portions of the form reviewed by Jewish Insider. 

He additionally pledged, without explanation, to “refrain from any and all affiliation” with what the DSA questionnaire dismissed as “Zionist lobby groups,” citing AIPAC, J Street, Christians United for Israel and, most notably, the Jewish Community Relations Council, a nonpartisan organization that typically engages with a diverse group of elected officials in both parties. The local JCRC — which represents the Jewish community to Minneapolis government officials — has voiced reservations about its ability to interact with Fateh if he is elected, in light of his statements on Israel.

But some of Fateh’s campaign staffers have gone significantly further than the state legislator, raising questions over his tolerance for incendiary language on a sensitive issue that has stoked growing internal tensions in the state party and could possibly inflect an increasingly bitter mayoral race in the lead-up to November.

In a series of now-deleted social media posts, for instance, Fateh’s communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman stated that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” while amplifying comments dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda” and hailing the attacks as a form of “resistance” that succeeded where the peace process had failed.

Elsewhere, Smith-Kooiman, who joined Fateh’s campaign in December, according to her LinkedIn page, declared a month after the Oct. 7 attacks that she did “not give a flying f**k about Hamas,” claiming “the root of the problem is a colonial government segregating, ethnically cleaning, murdering Palestinians, stealing their land with impunity and not expecting a resistance group to violently fight back.”

“Colonial and oppressive regimes love to call everyone but themselves a terrorist,” she continued in her November 2023 post to X, now removed from her profile. “Israeli terrorism created Hamas and the cycle will go on and on until Israel, Britain and the U.S. are held accountable for their violence and thievery. Let’s address root causes: imperialism.”

More recently, Smith-Kooiman, in a June social media post, advocated for the release of what she called “all Palestinian hostages,” equating prisoners held in Israel with the captives who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In addition to Smith-Kooiman, another activist with ties to Fateh’s mayoral bid, David Gilbert-Pederson, has unreservedly praised the Oct. 7 attack, which he has characterized as a heroic feat of defiance against “imperial domination.”

Speaking on a panel discussion about “connecting movements for collective liberation” in December 2023, Gilbert-Pederson — who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings — celebrated “what happened collectively for the people of Palestine on Oct. 7,” saying it was not his place to cast judgment on the violence. 

“We as Americans, people who live in the imperial core, our job is to stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression,” Gilbert-Pederson, a close ally of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), explained in his panel remarks. “Unconditional solidarity does not mean that we get to say, ‘Oh, this tactic you did, we don’t really like that,’ or, ‘We agree with you, but I think that some of your methods are too extreme.’ That’s not what unconditional solidarity means.”

“We live in the core of the empire,” he said, “so it is our job to demand that our government divest from Israel, divest from the colonial project, and start to free the U.S. as well.”

Broadly summarizing his approach, he argued that “all resistance to that kind of imperial domination is justified.”

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about Gilbert-Pederson and Smith-Kooiman, both of whom have previously faced some scrutiny for their rhetoric on Israel and Oct. 7, or his answers to the DSA’s questionnaire.

For his part, Frey, a Jewish Democrat, has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ attacks. The mayor, 44, has clashed with the City Council over anti-Israel resolutions he has dismissed as one-sided, even as he has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s handling of the ongoing war in Gaza.

In recent weeks, a creeping sense of frustration has settled in among many Jewish leaders in New York City as they have reckoned with the dawning reality that no one is stepping up to organize opposition to Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor. Without a well-funded outside effort, Mamdani faces few obstacles in the general election despite numerous political vulnerabilities.  

The complacency comes even as top Democratic leaders in New York have so far declined to endorse Mamdani, whose antagonistic views on Israel and democratic socialist affiliation have engendered criticism. But with a divided field of warring and baggage-laden candidates, Jewish leaders have privately voiced disappointment at the current state of the race.

“Big-money people are talking every week about how we have to do something, but I haven’t seen a real plan,” said one Jewish community leader who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “People are just grasping,” he added. “There’s a sense of frustration out there and fear of a letdown.”

“You can’t beat somebody with nobody,” another Jewish leader said in assessing Mamdani’s rivals, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee — all of whom have so far resisted pleas to suspend their campaigns in order to avoid splitting the vote.

While some independent expenditure committees are preparing to spend heavily in the race to target Mamdani, an assemblyman from Queens whose far-left policies have provoked anxiety among Jewish New Yorkers, moderate voters and business leaders, the Jewish leader expressed skepticism that such efforts would ultimately “make a difference” as long as the election remains crowded with multiple opponents. 

In the Hasidic enclave of Williamsburg, “the rank and file and donors are concerned” about Mamdani, said a source familiar with the situation. “But at the leadership level, people are mostly thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion” that Mamdani will prevail in November. “There’s not much to do and we have to start adapting and have to try to make amends with him and work with him.”

Jim Walden, an attorney, is also running as an independent alongside Adams and Cuomo, who in recent days have exchanged criticism as Mamdani, leading most polls with a plurality of the vote, stayed away from the headlines while celebrating his recent marriage in his birthplace of Uganda.

In the Hasidic enclave of Williamsburg, “the rank and file and donors are concerned” about Mamdani, said a source familiar with the situation. “But at the leadership level, people are mostly thinking that it’s a foregone conclusion” that Mamdani will prevail in November. “There’s not much to do and we have to start adapting and have to try to make amends with him and work with him.”

“No one thinks it’s going to be good for the Jewish community to be hostile and to be in constant war with the next mayor,” the source said on Monday. “For the community’s sake, we have to move on.”

As the anti-Mamdani coalition has struggled to coalesce more than a month after his shocking primary upset, the organized Jewish community is now largely taking a “wait-and-see” approach to the upcoming election, several Jewish activists told Jewish Insider on Monday.

David Greenfield, who leads the Jewish anti-poverty group Met Council and has been a fierce critic of Mamdani, said that many Jewish leaders are “watching closely to determine if he’ll moderate his socialist positions now that he has secured the Democratic nomination.”

“Zohran has floated possibly keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and that has caught the attention of several community leaders,” Greenfield told JI. “Currently, the race is quiet, partly due to Zohran himself being on vacation this month, but we expect it will significantly heat up again after Labor Day.”

A Jewish political activist who was not authorized to speak on the record echoed that assessment, even as he noted that some Jewish community leaders have been seeking to register new voters and working on “community structuring” in advance of the general election.

Still, he speculated that “if the race stays as is, then there will be a quiet shift to have conversations with Mamdani.”

For now, most mainstream Jewish groups remain hesitant to meet privately with Mamdani, according to a Jewish activist familiar with the matter, but the Democratic nominee has stepped up his outreach to Jewish voters and elected officials — while slightly softening his widely criticized defense of the slogan “globalize the intifada,” a phrase that many Jews interpret as a call to antisemitic violence. Mamdani has refused to personally condemn the slogan, but recently said he now discourages its use, marking a reversal from his primary comments as he seeks to grow his coalition.

“We’re planning to get started in August with messaging,” Jeff Leb, a political consultant who is leading a new super PAC called “New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 2025,” said on Monday. “I don’t think that people are sleeping on Zohran,” he said of the race. “I just think they’re making sure they have the resources they have to be active. Right now it’s a little bit early.”

Despite his evolution on the phrase, Mamdani remains a staunch opponent of Israel, backing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement he has indicated he could implement if elected. He has also suggested he would not visit Israel as mayor — defying a long-standing precedent in a place that is home to the largest Jewish population of any city in the world.

There are, to be sure, a range of anti-Mamdani initiatives underway in the Jewish community and beyond — some of which are expected to pick up in the coming weeks as summer begins to wind down after a period of relative inactivity, people involved in the efforts told JI.

Jeff Leb, a political consultant who is leading a new super PAC called “New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 2025” that plans to raise at least $20 million to hit Mamdani, told JI the group has in recent weeks held Zoom calls with more than 500 people and secured commitments as it readies attacks “to educate the public on Zohran’s priorities.”

“We’re planning to get started in August with messaging,” Leb said on Monday, noting that the super PAC is currently “candidate-agnostic” and will get behind Adams or Cuomo later in the race when polling indicates who is most favored. “I don’t think that people are sleeping on Zohran,” he said of the race. “I just think they’re making sure they have the resources they have to be active. Right now it’s a little bit early.”

Meanwhile, Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser in New York and a board member of the Republican Jewish coalition, is now organizing a fundraiser for Adams on Aug. 13, featuring former New York Gov. David Paterson and several donors from the legal and financial communities, according to an invite he has circulated within his network in recent days.

The Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, which endorsed Cuomo in the primary but has not made a decision in the general election, recently launched a voter registration drive to boost Jewish turnout in November, Josh Mehlman, the group’s chairman, said on Monday.

The organization is expecting to register “tens of thousands of new voters,” Mehlman confirmed in a statement to JI. “With the political turbulence and antisemitism that unfortunately surrounds us, it is more clear than ever that the importance of every resident registering to vote for the upcoming and future elections will shape the quality of life and security of our communities,” he explained. “Our renewed efforts reflect that urgency.” 

“No one wants to be fighting with the guy,” one Jewish leader said of Mamdani, acknowledging his rhetoric on Israel had evolved but not far enough to satisfy his most ardent skeptics. “No one wants to be in this position. But at the same time, I would put the onus on him. He’s the one who’s going to need to make changes.”

Sara Forman, the executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, a local pro-Israel group whose super PAC endorsed Cuomo in the primary, said the organization is now “keeping a close eye on everything that’s happening” in the race “and on its impact on the Jewish community,” while cautioning against “premature” conclusions at this stage of the election.

“Whether the field of candidates is able to coalesce in some way and what that looks like in September is very different from the end of July,” she told JI on Monday.

Privately, many Jewish leaders have fretted about the seemingly disaggregated and inchoate efforts to oppose Mamdani at a pivotal point in the race — as the current field continues to remain unsettled with limited time until the election.

“No one wants to be fighting with the guy,” one Jewish leader said of Mamdani, acknowledging his rhetoric on Israel had evolved but not far enough to satisfy his most ardent skeptics. “No one wants to be in this position. But at the same time, I would put the onus on him. He’s the one who’s going to need to make changes.”

Since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, there’s been a fascinating disconnect between the polls showing Mamdani still vulnerable in the general election and the sclerosis among political leaders unable to make the tough decisions on whether to rally behind an alternative in a bid to stop the socialist candidate from becoming the next mayor.

There hasn’t been much good polling since the primary, but the most recent general election surveys all paint a picture of Mamdani leading the race with a plurality, but far below what a typical Democratic nominee should be receiving after a stunning, come-from-behind defeat of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 

One poll, conducted by the Democratic firm Slingshot Strategies between July 2-6, found Mamdani winning 35% of registered voters, Cuomo at 25%, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa tallying 14%, Mayor Eric Adams at 11% and attorney Jim Walden at 1%. Thirteen percent said they were undecided.

A late-June poll by the GOP firm American Pulse found Mamdani at 35%, Cuomo at 29%, Sliwa winning 16% and Adams with 14%. Asked whether they were leaning towards voting for Mamdani or anyone but Mamdani, it was close to an even split, with 48% leaning towards Mamdani and 46% preferring anyone else.

Of note, both polls found the combined Cuomo and Adams vote — which roughly encompasses the lion’s share of the moderate Democratic electorate — narrowly outpacing Mamdani’s share of support. In other words, the Mamdani alternative wouldn’t necessarily need a large portion of the Republican vote to prevail. 

The obvious challenge for the anti-Mamdani forces is consolidating the field behind one leading opponent — or at least encouraging one of the two Democratic candidates in the race to drop out and endorse the other one. That’s a lot easier said than done. 

The Cuomo camp rightly claims that, on paper, their numbers are stronger than the scandal-plagued Adams. The Adams camp rightly argues that Cuomo had his chance after blowing a very winnable race, thanks to a lackluster campaign operation and a lack of energy on the campaign trail — traits that won’t bode well for a general election rematch.

Both sides are correct in that all the Mamdani alternatives are seriously flawed. But looking at summer polls to predict how things could develop throughout the summer is a foolhardy exercise. After all, as we’ve written in these pages, the argument for defeating Mamdani doesn’t rest on the strength of the challenger, but the desire to build a broad coalition to stop a far-left activist from taking charge of the nation’s largest city. 

Adams, as the incumbent, might be the better vehicle to put together that coalition despite his dismal favorability ratings right now. He’s already shown more agility as a general election candidate, framing the race between a silver-spooned socialist (Mamdani) against his blue-collar background.

On paper, Adams also seems better-positioned to win over enough Black voters and some crossover Republicans that Cuomo would likely struggle more in turning out. Cuomo is viewed as a partisan villain to most New York Republicans, and Adams has shown resilience with Black voters in his early campaign efforts.  

But regardless of who is the strongest alternative, outside groups and business leaders need to start picking a side now if they have any hope of blocking Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion. It’s notable that most of the state’s top elected leaders — from Gov. Kathy Hochul to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — have still not endorsed Mamdani, even though he was declared winner of the primary over two weeks ago.

The longer the anti-Mamdani forces wait to make their move, the easier it becomes for him to consolidate enough Democratic support to make the efforts even harder. The reality is the fear of failure is as significant for many of these stakeholders as the desire to prevent a far-left candidate from taking over Gracie Mansion.

Days after New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s stunning upset in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, an emerging effort to block his path to Gracie Mansion is now beginning to materialize among a coalition of Jewish community leaders, business executives and Republican donors who have expressed alarm about his far-left policies and strident opposition to Israel.

While still in its nascent stage, the anti-Mamdani coalition is coalescing behind Eric Adams, the embattled mayor who skipped the primary to run as an independent and launched his reelection bid on Thursday. The mayor, who a day before in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” had called Mamdani a “snake-oil salesman,” is gearing up for a public brawl with the 33-year-old assemblyman and democratic socialist aiming to unseat him.

“This election is a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a silver spoon,” Adams said in his campaign announcement on the steps of City Hall, depicting Mamdani, the son of a Columbia University professor and a filmmaker, as privileged.

Political strategists say Mamdani, who upset former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary and would enter the general election as the presumptive front-runner, is a formidable nominee, particularly as the scandal-tarred mayor confronts dismal favorability numbers owing largely to the federal corruption charges he avoided while forging an unpopular alliance with the Trump administration.

But some opponents of Mamdani view Adams as the most effective vehicle to stop the presumptive Democratic nominee from winning in November, and are readying for a fight. Among other possible efforts now in the works is a “big push” to create an independent expenditure committee backed by real estate executives and other donors to boost Adams’ campaign, according to one consultant familiar with the matter.

“That’s definitely going to happen,” the consultant told Jewish Insider on Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing private deliberations. “People aren’t going to be taking this easy and just dealing with Mamdani,” he explained, noting the pro-Israel donor community could join the outside spending effort. “I’m sure some people are, but the people who have a lot to lose aren’t.”

Eric Levine, a top Republican fundraiser in New York City, endorsed Adams on Wednesday and said in an interview that he believes it is a “feasible” goal to reelect the mayor, provided that Cuomo stays out of the race and Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee, ends his campaign in order to avoid splintering the vote. 

While Cuomo has yet to confirm if he will run on an independent ballot line, Sliwa has rejected growing calls for him to step aside. Jim Walden, a lawyer, is also running as an independent in what has become an unusually crowded race.

Levine, a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that he had received overwhelmingly positive responses since announcing his support for Adams in an email sent to 2,000 people — including from Democrats who backed Cuomo in the primary. “I’ve gotten feedback from a lot of people that this is a five-alarm fire and they’re going to line up behind Adams,” Levine told JI on Thursday, adding that he was “seriously considering” organizing a fundraiser for Adams and is hopeful Republican leaders would attend.

One strategist suggested that Adams could face backlash for campaigning with Republicans in the heavily Democratic city, especially as he has drawn scrutiny over his ties to the Trump administration. But the mayor will likely need to win support from a significant portion of GOP voters if he has any hope of building a viable coalition that has included Black and Orthodox Jewish residents whom Mamdani, with a long record of anti-Israel activism, has struggled to win over.

“Eric Adams has been a friend since his first days in office,” Leon Goldenberg, an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said in a social media post. “Fighting antisemitism and standing with the Jewish community is in his DNA. The stakes are very high.”

The Jewish community, which overwhelmingly backed Cuomo in the primary, is expected to throw its support behind Adams, promising to deliver key voting blocs in November. Adams, who announced his reelection campaign alongside Orthodox leaders on Thursday, has long-standing ties to the community and during the primary engaged in a covert pressure campaign to try to influence the endorsement deliberations as Cuomo won backing from major Hasidic sects.

Leon Goldenberg, an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said on Thursday he was supporting Adams’ campaign, the first endorsement from an Orthodox leader in what is anticipated to be many more heading into the fall.

“Eric Adams has been a friend since his first days in office,” Goldenberg, who has expressed concerns about Mamdani’s rise, said in a social media post. “Fighting antisemitism and standing with the Jewish community is in his DNA. The stakes are very high.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum, an Orthodox activist close to the Trump administration, has backed Adams and is also now seeking to rally support for his bid while urging Sliwa to drop out of the race. He said he was not yet at liberty to divulge specific names, but told JI he had been in communication with “Wall Street executives” as well as “young student activists” and a range of religious leaders about working to reelect Adams.

“There has really been a profound resurgence of a diverse coalition who truly, truly are terrified of Mamdani’s socialist dystopian future for New York City,” Kestenbaum said. 

Still, no major financial commitments appear to have been made yet, even as Adams reportedly met with business leaders this week to discuss the race. “People haven’t made decisions,” said a person who has met with donors about the election. “Those types of decisions can’t be made in two or three hours.”

“A lot of people are talking about Eric. I just don’t see it in terms of being a contender,” George Arzt, a veteran political consultant, told JI. “Mamdani is very articulate. He is very likable. He’s got to prove himself to the real estate community and to the Jewish community.”

Jay Martin, executive vice president of the New York Apartment Association, said his organization “isn’t making any decisions for a little while,” but he added that his peers in the industry would likely be rallying behind the mayor. “I think they are going to see what they can do with Adams at the moment,” he told JI.

Mamdani, who has won some support from Democratic leaders since Tuesday’s primary, has dismissed the gestating efforts to corral support for Adams, saying that they will prove ineffective as his movement continues to gain traction. “What we have shown in this primary is our ability to overcome the same billionaires who may fund Eric Adams’s re-election campaign,” he told The New York Times, “and ultimately we’re able to do so because of the power of New Yorkers across the five boroughs.”

George Arzt, a veteran political consultant, said he was doubtful Adams would be able to win re-election as mayor, even as he acknowledged that there are “a lot of people” in the real estate industry and the Jewish community who are “very worried” about Mamdani, who has proposed rent freezes while defending calls to “globalize the intifada,” among other things.

“A lot of people are talking about Eric. I just don’t see it in terms of being a contender,” Arzt told JI. “Mamdani is very articulate. He is very likable. He’s got to prove himself to the real estate community and to the Jewish community.”

Jerry Skurnik, a senior consultant for Engage Voters U.S., a political consulting firm, said that “it will be very hard to defeat Mamdani in November,” noting that after the ranked-choice voting count is finalized, “he’ll have received over 500,000 votes.”

“That’s a pretty good start to a majority as he’ll have opportunity to then add votes from Democrats who didn’t vote in the primary and Democratic-leaning independents,” Skurnik added, before including a caveat. “On the other hand, I didn’t think Mamdani had a chance to win the primary until recently, so I don’t rule out anything.”

Zohran Mamdani’s presumed victory over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor on Tuesday evening marks an extraordinary upset that until recently seemed all but unthinkable for the far-left state assemblyman from Queens who entered the race last October with virtually no name recognition. 

The stunning rise of the 33-year-old democratic socialist with a long history of anti-Israel activism sent shockwaves through New York City’s political establishment and is already reverberating beyond the Big Apple, raising questions over the ideological direction of the Democratic Party as it has struggled to land on a cohesive messaging strategy to counter President Donald Trump. 

With the midterms looming, Trump’s allies are already reportedly preparing to link Mamdani’s radical politics to the broader Democratic brand.

Meanwhile, in a place home to the largest Jewish population of any city in the world, Mamdani’s path to the nomination is also contributing to a growing sense of political homelessness among Jewish Democrats who voiced discomfort with his strident criticism of Israel and refusal to condemn extreme rhetoric such as “globalize the intifada,” a slogan that critics interpret as fueling antisemitism.

Cuomo, the scandal-scarred former governor of New York, leaned into his support for Israel and raised alarms about the rise of antisemitism as he courted Jewish voters. But his message ultimately failed to resonate over Mamdani’s sustained focus on affordability, including calls to “freeze the rent” that galvanized younger voters who turned out en masse.

While the final primary results are unlikely to be fully counted until next week because of the city’s ranked-choice system, Mamdani, with nearly 44% of first-place votes, held a commanding seven-point lead over Cuomo on Tuesday night — forcing the former governor to deliver a concession speech earlier than most had expected.

“Tonight was not our night,” Cuomo said at his election night watch party in Manhattan. “Tonight was Assemblyman Mamdani’s night.” He said he had called Mamdani to congratulate him for “a great campaign” that “touched young people and inspired them and moved them and got them to come out and vote.”

“He deserved it,” Cuomo concluded. “He won.”

Mamdani, for his part, said in his own speech that he would “be a mayor for every New Yorker,” and sought to assuage voter concerns about his views on Israel and the Middle East. “There are millions of New Yorkers who have strong feelings about what happens overseas. Yes, I am one of them,” he said, adding, “You have my word to reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree.”

Mamdani’s insurgent victory five months into President Donald Trump’s second term was reminiscent of then-upstart Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset primary victory over then-Rep. Joe Crowley in the spring of 2018, one of the seminal moments that year of the political backlash to Trump. It was an early signal that the party, even as it elected a number of moderate lawmakers in that year’s Democratic wave, was moving inexorably leftward in reaction to a Trump White House.

Even as Mamdani is poised to win the Democratic nomination, the two-term state legislator is facing a potentially messy general election that Cuomo could enter on a separate ballot line. The former governor indicated on Tuesday that he would “take a look” at the race and would “make some decisions” but gave no clear confirmation of his plans.

As Cuomo mulls his decision, it remains unclear who will emerge as a moderate standard-bearer in the November election, though the primary results were sure to be an encouraging turn for Eric Adams, the embattled mayor running as an independent — and whose team was hoping for a Mamdani victory.

The crowded general election also includes Jim Walden, a centrist independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, raising the specter of a fractured vote that could help propel Mamdani to Gracie Mansion. 
Given that possibility, one Jewish leader in New York City recently speculated to Jewish Insider that Republicans would choose to unite behind Adams over Sliwa, “because then you have a real chance of winning.”

As the closely watched Democratic primary for mayor of New York City wraps up today, many Jewish and pro-Israel activists are now confronting a mounting sense of alarm that Zohran Mamdani, a far-left assemblyman from Queens, could win the nomination, propelling a fierce critic of Israel to the general election — and, potentially, Gracie Mansion.

In a city home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, Mamdani’s rise has fueled anxiety among Jewish leaders — particularly as his hostile positions toward Israel have hardly dented his standing in a competitive race that has narrowed to a two-person matchup.

Even if Mamdani does not win, Jewish Democrats uncomfortable with his strident criticism of Israel and alleged insensitivity to rising antisemitism fear that his surging campaign could end up alienating Jewish voters who have long called the party home.

“The Jewish community is going to face a real shock if Mamdani gets the nomination,” Mitchell Moss, an urban policy professor at New York University who is backing Cuomo, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Monday. “A lot of people have come to realize that anti-Israel sentiment has metastasized into antisemitism.”

The Tik Tok-savvy Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, has largely polled in second place behind his chief rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, though a poll released by Emerson College on Monday showed Mamdani narrowly prevailing. 

Cuomo’s campaign, for its part, has dismissed the survey as an outlier and cited other polls showing him with a more robust lead in the crowded race to unseat Mayor Eric Adams, who is seeking reelection as an independent. Fix the City, a pro-Cuomo super PAC that has slammed Mamdani’s approach to Israel in several attack ads, also released a new poll Monday that found Cuomo with a comfortable, 24-point lead over Mamdani in the final round of voting. 

While support for Israel had once been viewed as a prerequisite for any winning campaign in New York City, Mamdani’s bid has tested that proposition. He has suggested he is uninterested in visiting Israel if elected, breaking with long-standing precedent, and has declined to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. 

The two-term state lawmaker, who has endorsed boycotts targeting Israel, has said he would divest from Israel as mayor and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes if he were to enter the city. Perhaps most controversially, Mamdani has drawn scrutiny for defending calls to “globalize the intifada” — a slogan that critics interpret as stoking violence against Jews.

Despite backlash, Mamdani doubled down on that defense during a radio interview on Monday, saying the phrase “has a variety of meanings to a variety of people.”

Many Jewish and pro-Israel activists in New York City have found his response alarming. “No matter what the outcome tomorrow, the fact that Zohran has been able to capture the attention of so many people who are really blind to his antisemitic tendencies really says something about the state of our electorate right now,” Sara Forman, who leads a pro-Israel super PAC that has urged voters to rank Cuomo first and to exclude Mamdani entirely, told JI.

Mamdani’s “foreign policy stances are isolating Jews and freezing us out from our political home base in the Democratic Party,” Forman said in an interview on Monday. “If the Democratic Party doesn’t wake up and start speaking to its core constituencies of Blacks, Jews and Latinos, we’re going to find our party rebuilt in someone else’s image.”

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist, predicted a Mamdani victory could end up pushing “more Jews nationally into the Republican column” and said Orthodox Jews might choose to relocate to South Florida and New Jersey. “Whether he wins or loses,” Sheinkopf said, the contours of the race have sent a concerning message that he characterized as “Jews don’t matter.”

Mamdani has rejected accusations of antisemitism, saying his opponents have weaponized such charges to score “political points.” He has said he is sensitive to rising antisemitism across New York City and has vowed to increase funding to counter hate crimes by 800%.

Early voting tallies have suggested that Mamdani has galvanized his base of younger supporters who are enlivened by his calls to “freeze the rent” and to deliver free buses as he has emphasized a message of affordability.

Cuomo, meanwhile, is depending on strong turnout from Black, Latino and Orthodox Jewish voters who have long been part of his core coalition. The former governor has locked up major endorsements from a range of key Orthodox leaders in Williamsburg and Borough Park, a Hasidic enclave in Brooklyn where he spent time on Sunday rallying a community that could deliver thousands of votes in a close election.

One Satmar leader in Williamsburg told JI that he is expecting solid turnout from New York City’s largest Hasidic voting bloc, predicting up to 8,000 votes for Cuomo, who has worked to mend relationships with Orthodox leaders that soured over his crackdown on religious gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cuomo campaign believes polls are missing the Orthodox vote, which could make the difference in a close election, according to an advisor who said that turnout from the community has been encouraging. “But what else are they missing is the question,” the advisor told JI on Monday, speaking anonymously to address the race.

Still, some Orthodox leaders remain on edge as Mamdani has continued to defy the odds over the course of the campaign. “He has really excited his base,” said one Orthodox leader in Brooklyn. “I am very fearful that he could actually make it, especially on ranked choice.”

Cuomo, who has won endorsements from Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and former President Bill Clinton in recent days, has also struggled to overcome his own vulnerabilities in the race, including accusations of sexual misconduct that forced his resignation from office in 2021. He denies the allegations and said he regrets stepping down.

In the final days of the election, the former governor — who has called antisemitism “the most important issue” and touted his staunch support for Israel — has insisted that his decades of government experience make him better suited to handle threats from Iran after the U.S. bombing of its nuclear sites over the weekend.

“Who do you want in charge in that situation?” he said of possible Iranian retaliation for the attacks. “Who’s handled situations like Hurricane Sandy and COVID and terrorist threats? This is not a job for on-the-job training.” 

As for the bombing itself, Cuomo backed the effort to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but he took issue with President Donald Trump’s decision to do so unilaterally without first consulting Congress — underscoring another key difference with Mamdani on Middle East policy.

Mamdani criticized the attack on Iran as “the result of a political establishment that would rather spend trillions of dollars on weapons than lift millions out of poverty, launch endless wars while silencing calls for peace, and fearmonger about outsiders while billionaires hollow out our democracy from within.”

The other candidates in the crowded primary, including Brad Lander, the city comptroller, and Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, have struggled to gain traction, polling has indicated.

Regardless of the primary result, which is unlikely to be confirmed for several days because of the ranked-choice system, both Mamdani and Cuomo could run in the general election on separate ballot lines, a possibility neither candidate has ruled out.

“This is a prelude to November,” said Moss, the urban policy professor, envisioning a high-stakes general election. “If Mamdani wins in New York,” he warned, “you can say goodbye to the Democratic Party for a long time.”

The majority Satmar faction in Brooklyn, which represents the largest Hasidic voting bloc in New York City, is backing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for mayor, lending what is likely to be a major boost to his campaign in the final days of the increasingly competitive Democratic primary.

The Zaloynim Satmar faction based in Williamsburg, led by Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, announced on Tuesday that it is ranking Cuomo as its top pick in the June 24 primary, as recent polls have shown a tightening race between the former governor and Zohran Mamdani, a far-left state assemblyman from Queens.

The endorsement is slated to run on Wednesday in Der Yid, a Yiddish paper aligned with the faction — which ranked Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council, as its second pick for mayor, followed by Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn.

Cuomo also notched a key endorsement on Monday from the rival Aroynim Satmar faction led by Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, which is a smaller but politically influential community. The group likewise ranked Adrienne Adams as its second pick in the primary to replace embattled Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent.

Because Hasidic communities typically vote in blocs based on rabbinic support, the endorsements could collectively turn out more than 6,000 votes, experts estimate, which could make the difference in a close race.

The dual Satmar backing, highly coveted in New York City races, caps off a string of endorsements Cuomo has accumulated from Orthodox leaders in recent days. Last Friday, he claimed a major endorsement from the Bobov sect, the largest Hasidic bloc in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn that could deliver more than 4,000 votes, according to experts.

The former governor has also recently won support from the Far Rockaway Jewish Alliance; the Crown Jewish United and the Crown Heights PAC; and the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition.

Still, there have been a few holdouts who remain bitter over Cuomo’s COVID-era restrictions, which many voters recall as discriminatory, according to one Jewish activist familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject.

On Monday, a large coalition of Hasidic sects and institutions in Borough Park broke from the Bobov leadership and announced it was ranking Adrienne Adams as its first choice, followed by Myrie, whose district includes the Hasidic enclave of Crown Heights.

The coalition did not publicly provide a reason for its decision to exclude Cuomo from its ranking. But the Jewish activist, who was privately briefed on its thinking, said that some Hasidic leaders continue to harbor lingering resentment toward Cuomo over his COVID policies, which the former governor has sought to address in a recent series of meetings to mend relationships with a community his campaign regards as crucial to securing the nomination.

“People didn’t find his apology sincere,” the Jewish activist said of Cuomo’s outreach.

The group was also organized by allies of Eric Adams, whose team has privately urged Orthodox leaders not to rank Cuomo first or to exclude him entirely from their endorsement slates, believing that Adams will be best poised to win the general election with Mamdani as the nominee, according to multiple people familiar with the behind-the-scenes push to influence the primary.

One source familiar with the effort said Adams has personally intervened, asking Moishe Indig, a leader of the Aroynim Satmar faction, to include Mamdani in an endorsement slate.

Indig did not respond to a request for comment on the effort, which was reported earlier by The New York Times. 

Most Orthodox leaders have chosen to ignore the lobbying effort led by Adams’ deputy chief of staff, Menashe Shapiro, according to sources, even as the mayor has built close ties to the Jewish community and has recently been highlighting his new efforts to oppose antisemitism, which Cuomo has called “the most important issue” in the race.

A spokesperson for Adams, Kayla Mamelek, said in a statement on Tuesday that the mayor “has always stood with New York City’s Jewish communities — not only working to uplift and empower them, but confronting the disturbing rise in antisemitism in recent years.”

Even as Cuomo has rolled out a range of Orthodox endorsements, Adams’ team is hopeful that Jewish leaders will ultimately reverse course and back the mayor in the general election, according to sources. 

But Cuomo’s advisors as well as Jewish leaders have dismissed that expectation as wishful thinking given the mayor’s precarious standing with voters after he convinced the Trump administration to dismiss his federal corruption charges as part of an alleged quid pro quo.

A recent poll showed that Adams would lose the general election by double digits in hypothetical matchups against both Mamdani and Cuomo, whose comfortable lead in the primary has been dwindling in recent weeks.

Mamdani’s insurgent bid has raised alarms among Jewish leaders who have been troubled by his fierce opposition to Israel amid rising antisemitism fueled by the ongoing war in Gaza.

“Mr. Cuomo’s leading opponent is a self-identified socialist who has expressed views and taken actions deeply offensive and worrisome to our community,” the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition said in its endorsement on Monday, citing Mamdani’s support for anti-Israel boycott campaigns and his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. “These positions are not only controversial, they are outright dangerous.”

Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and said he strives to show his disagreements on Israel are “still based on a shared sense of humanity,” as he put it at a recent town hall hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York.

The democratic socialist has engaged in some direct outreach to the Orthodox community, meeting for an interview with Satmar leaders that was recently published in a popular Yiddish women’s magazine, among other efforts.

Indig, the Aroynim Satmar leader, has met with Mamdani and told the Times he was still weighing if he would add the assemblyman to his endorsement slate, suggesting that Adams’ recent outreach could pay off in the primary.

Indig, who backed Adams last cycle and is a part of his Jewish advisory council, prefers the mayor over Cuomo, said a person familiar with his thinking. He has indicated he will support Adams in the general election.

Unlike other Hasidic sects, the Satmar community is theologically anti-Zionist, opposing Israel on the grounds that the messiah has yet to arrive to usher in the creation of a Jewish state, and does not view Israel as a top issue.

Polling has found that Mamdani holds virtually no support in the Orthodox community, while Cuomo is favored by a sizable number of voters whom he is counting on to propel him to victory in the primary. 

In his campaign for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, a far-left Queens state assemblyman polling in second place behind former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has indicated he would not visit Israel if he is elected, saying he does not believe that such a trip is necessary “to stand up for Jewish New Yorkers.”

“I believe that to stand up for Jewish New Yorkers means that you actually meet Jewish New Yorkers wherever they may be, be it at their synagogues and temples or their homes or on the subway platform or at a park, wherever it may be,” Mamdani, a fierce critic of Israel, reiterated in comments at a mayoral forum hosted by several progressive Jewish groups on Sunday night.

By contrast, in a 2020 Zoom discussion with the Adalah Justice Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, Mamdani said he was planning to organize a trip to the Palestinian territories, suggesting that he would make an exception for an issue he has upheld as one of his top causes during his tenure in Albany.

“Once COVID is over, I am planning on finding a way to coordinate a trip with other legislators to Palestine,” Mamdani said at the time. “We’ll figure that one out. I’ll probably get to the border and get turned away, but at the very least I’m going to organize it and go myself.”

It is unclear if Mamdani organized such a trip. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The comments, however, broadly underscore how Mamdani’s past remarks on the Israel-Palestinian conflict have become a source of growing tension as he confronts basic questions on the issue during his mayoral campaign. 

Several of Mamdani’s Democratic opponents in the June 24 primary have said they would visit Israel if elected — in keeping with a long-standing tradition for New York City mayors who represent the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Cuomo, who is leading the primary, has vowed it would be his first trip abroad, as have other candidates.

Mamdani, for his part, has suggested he would not visit any foreign country as mayor, saying he would instead “stay in New York City,” as he confirmed at the first mayoral debate last week. “My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on that,” he said.

During the mayoral forum on Sunday evening, he also raised doubts about whether he would be able to enter Israel at all, citing Israeli legislation barring non-citizen backers of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement from visiting the Jewish state.

Despite his long-standing support for BDS, Mamdani, who has faced scrutiny for declining to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, did not provide a direct answer about whether he would continue to endorse the movement as mayor when asked at the forum, saying only that he would seek to “bring New York City back into” compliance with international law.

“I think ultimately, the focus of our mayor should be on the issues of New York City at hand,” he insisted, even as he had argued in the Zoom conversation five years ago that BDS is a salient “local” issue and said that mayoral candidates should be pressured to join the movement to boycott Israel.

Elsewhere in that discussion, Mamdani voiced hostility to resolutions in the state Legislature to “disavow BDS” or “stand in solidarity with Israel,” which he dismissed as promoting Israeli interests. 

“They use all of these hasbara propaganda talking points in the resolutions,” Mamdani said, using the Hebrew word for Israeli public diplomacy. “That is one place to fight is to stop such resolutions from being passed, to pass different kinds of resolutions.”

Mamdani has faced scrutiny for not signing on to several resolutions commemorating the Holocaust and honoring Israel during his tenure in office. He has defended his decision as consistent with what he now describes as a general policy against joining any such measures.

“In January, I told my Assembly staff not to co-sponsor any resolutions that were emailed to our office,” Mamdani said in a video last month. “It had nothing to do with the content of the resolution. But I understand this has caused pain and confusion for many.”

He said he had “voted every year for the Holocaust Remembrance Day Resolution, including this year, to honor the more than 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.”

A new coalition of pro-Israel LGBTQ activists is backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as its first choice in a ranked slate of candidate endorsements for New York City mayor, according to a statement shared exclusively with Jewish Insider on Thursday.

“Amidst the unprecedented rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment and activity within our city, we, LGBTQ Zionists of New York, feel a deep responsibility to share our endorsements for the Democratic primaries,” the group said in its announcement. “We believe it is essential to elect champions of both the gay community and of Zionists — those who support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel.”

The group cited Cuomo’s “longstanding support for LGBTQ rights and plan to address antisemitism in the city,” which includes, among other things, a vow to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into city law.

Cuomo, the Democratic front-runner who often touts his support for Israel and has called rising antisemitism “the most important issue” in the race, has been consolidating support from Jewish leaders in recent weeks, amid concerns over the increasing favorability of his top rival, Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens who has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and described himself as an anti-Zionist.

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, many Jewish and pro-Israel activists have increasingly felt unwelcome expressing their Zionism in LGBTQ spaces — where the ongoing war in Gaza has fueled rising anti-Israel sentiment that has also shaped the June 24 mayoral primary in New York.

“New York City is home to the largest LGBTQ community in America and the largest Jewish population outside of Israel,” the group said. “The stakes of this election are beyond historic — they’re personal. As we enter Pride Month, we are grateful for our selected candidates’ work thus far. We stand with immense pride as New Yorkers, as LGBTQ Jews, and as Zionists, and we will advocate for a future where we are seen, heard and celebrated for all that we are — and nothing less.”

In addition to Cuomo, the coalition ranked Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive who has been outspoken in his support for Israel and his criticism of rising antisemitism, as its second pick for mayor. Brad Lander, the Jewish city comptroller who has long identified as a “progressive Zionist,” is its third choice, followed by Zellnor Myrie, a state senator from Brooklyn, and Scott Stringer, a former comptroller who is also Jewish.

The coalition represents hundreds of LGBTQ activists in New York City from a broad range of organizations, a spokesperson told JI. The group, which says it plans to engage in get-out-the-vote efforts in the final leg of the race, is led by Roniel Tessler and Alex Kaufman, who were motivated to pursue grassroots LGBTQ Zionist organizing following the Oct. 7 attacks.

The group also endorsed several downballot candidates, including Mark Levine, the Jewish Manhattan borough president now running for comptroller; Jenifer Rajkumar, a Queens state assemblywoman hoping to unseat Jumaane Williams in the race for public advocate; and Patrick Timmins, who is mounting a campaign against the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.

In a heated City Council race in Park Slope, the group threw its support behind Maya Kornberg, a Jewish political scientist now challenging Shahana Hanif, the incumbent, who has faced backlash from Jewish voters over her harsh criticism of Israel and alleged insensitivity to antisemitic incidents in her district.

“We are endorsing candidates who will confront, condemn and work to resolve the dangerous rise of antisemitism in our city, and ensure Jewish, LGBTQ and Zionist voices are protected and respected,” the group said in its statement on Thursday.

An influential coalition of Orthodox Jewish leaders in Far Rockaway, Queens, is endorsing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City, Jewish Insider has learned, the first official demonstration of support from a major Orthodox group in the race.

In a lengthy statement first shared with JI on Wednesday night, leaders of the Far Rockaway Jewish Alliance wrote that the “Jewish community in New York — particularly the frum community — faces a political crisis of historic proportions,” and urged voters to move past their lingering resentment over Cuomo’s COVID policies, which community members recall as discriminatory. 

“We still feel the pain of the unfair red zones imposed by Cuomo in 2020, which targeted our communities and restricted our way of life with heavy-handed measures,” the leaders acknowledged. “That wound lingers, a reminder of how quickly our freedoms can be curtailed. Yet, despite this pain, we must look forward and consider our future as Jews in New York City, where new threats loom larger than past grievances.”

The leaders, who represent a key voting bloc in Queens, suggested their support for Cuomo was motivated almost singularly by concerns with his top rival, Zohran Mandani, a Queens state assemblyman whose fierce opposition to Israel and close alliance with the Democratic Socialists of America have raised alarms in the Jewish community.

“If Zohran Mamdani and the movement behind him succeed, we risk losing everything we’ve built,” they write. “This isn’t a mere policy disagreement or politics as usual. Mamdani and his allies, backed by the DSA, have made their intentions clear: they aim to defund our yeshivas, strip our neighborhoods of police protection, and vilify support for Israel as a disqualifying offense. These aren’t empty threats. They’re drafting laws, redirecting budgets, and winning elections — all while projecting a facade of goodwill.”

The alliance members who signed the statement include Elkanah Adelman, Richard Altabe, Shalom Becker, Boruch Ber Bender, Rabbi Zvi Bloom, Jack Brach, Mordechai Zvi Dicker, Ruchie Dunn, Joel Kaplan, Moshe Lazar, Moishe Mishkowitz, Chaim Rapfogel, Baruch Rothman and Aaron Zupnick, according to the announcement.

“Cuomo is no tzaddik, and no one claims he is,” they write. “But we’re not choosing a rebbe — we’re choosing a shield. If we don’t seize the shield before us, we’ll be left utterly defenseless. The reality is stark: in the voting booth, only two candidates can win — Andrew Cuomo or Zohran Mamdani. No one else is close.”

Their new endorsement comes as Cuomo has sought to mend relationships in the Orthodox community that had soured during the COVID pandemic. As polling has shown a tightening race against Mandani, such support could prove crucial, promising to turn out thousands of votes.

In the coming days, Cuomo is also expected to win further endorsements from major Hasidic sects in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Borough Park, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Choosing not to vote for Cuomo isn’t neutrality — it’s handing Mamdani a victory,” the Queens leaders said in their own new endorsement. “That’s a risk our community cannot take. This moment demands action. If we fail to resist this radical, anti-Torah movement, we won’t be debating policies in ten years — we’ll be debating whether we can still live here at all. We cannot stay silent. We cannot stay home. Not now.”

“This isn’t about Cuomo,” they conclude. “It’s about us.”

Leon Goldenberg, a prominent Orthodox Jewish leader in Brooklyn, is endorsing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor, he confirmed exclusively to Jewish Insider on Friday.

“I am fully endorsing Gov. Cuomo,” Goldenberg said. “I think he’s the best candidate by far. He’s accomplished for the city and the state. We need somebody who’s going to get things accomplished and who’s going to fight antisemitism as a major issue.”

Goldenberg, who is an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said that he was backing Cuomo in his personal capacity, but he anticipated his group would also endorse the former governor after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which concludes on Tuesday evening.

His early endorsement is among the first major signs of formal Orthodox support for Cuomo with just over three weeks until the June 24 Democratic primary. The former governor has in recent weeks engaged in proactive outreach to Orthodox leaders who represent sizable voting blocs that could prove crucial in the increasingly competitive race.

While polling has shown Cuomo leading the crowded primary field, his comfortable margin has narrowed as Zohran Mamdani, a far-left state assemblyman in Queens, has recently come within eight points of the former governor in the final round of ranked-choice voting, according to an independent survey released earlier this week.

Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel who is the only candidate in the primary to publicly back the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, has voiced rhetoric that has raised alarms among many Jewish leaders as his campaign continues to surge. 

Recently, Mamdani faced scrutiny for declining to recognize Israel as a Jewish state while speaking at a town hall last week hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York. He also stirred controversy this week over his comments to a mosque in Queens in which he denounced Israel’s pager attack last year against Hezbollah in Lebanon without mentioning it had been aimed at the terror group’s operatives rather than civilians.

Goldenberg said his lone endorsement of Cuomo was in many ways meant to raise awareness about the stakes of what appears to have become a two-person race. 

“We’re trying to get the message out about how important it is to support Cuomo,” Goldenberg said. “Mamdani, who will do very well in ranked-choice voting where Cuomo will not do as well, is really gaining a lot of ground.”

Cuomo has also notched support from Sam Berger, an Orthodox state assemblyman from Queens who has accused Mamdani of stoking antisemitism. But leading Orthodox groups, whose endorsements can traditionally yield thousands of votes that have helped tipped the scales in close elections, have yet to weigh in on the primary.

In recent weeks, Cuomo has met privately with a range of Orthodox leaders to mend relationships that deteriorated over restrictions he implemented at the height of the COVID pandemic, which many community members still recall as discriminatory.

The former governor has voiced regret for creating “the impression that the community was targeted,” which he said was not his intention, and recognized that he “could have done more” to address concerns at the time.

Though Orthodox leaders have been receptive to his outreach, constituents are still bitter about Cuomo’s COVID record, even as he has expressed contrition, according to people familiar with the conversations.

For his part, Goldenberg, whose group in Flatbush met with Cuomo this month, said that he had been satisfied with Cuomo’s response to criticism during their discussion, but emphasized he is now engaging in outreach to younger voters who may not be closely following the primary. 

Mamdani “is not going to be a friend of the Jews,” Goldenberg told JI. “That’s the message that just has to get out more and more forcefully, especially in the Orthodox community, which is still incensed about COVID.”

Even as Mamdani has also sought to engage with the community, a recent poll showed his support at 0% among Orthodox voters, while faring better with other Jewish denominations. Cuomo, meanwhile, performs strongest in the Orthodox community, claiming 41% of the vote, according to the poll.

In the broader Jewish community, Cuomo, who has frequently touted his support for Israel while calling antisemitism “the most important issue” in the race, is leading the field with a relatively small plurality of the vote, recent polls suggest.

Despite leading all publicly available polls, Cuomo also holds high unfavorability ratings stemming in large part from his resignation as governor amid allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.

In a tight race, the Orthodox community could help close the margins for Cuomo, as previous primaries have shown. Mayor Eric Adams, now running as an independent, narrowly won the nomination in 2021 with critical support from Orthodox leaders, whose communities tend to vote as a bloc.

“The Orthodox community can make a difference,” said Goldenberg, whose group endorsed Adams last cycle. “If we come out forcefully.” 

He estimated there are at least 100,000 Orthodox voters in Flatbush alone, but was unable to share a party breakdown. “We have been pushing people to register as Democrats, and have had some success,” he told JI. “We’ll keep pushing it.”

In the meantime, Goldbenberg said he expects other Orthodox leaders will also soon fall behind Cuomo. “I think it really has to happen across the board,” he told JI. “So many others are holding back, but I think we have to get the momentum.”

“Sometimes there’s a choice and you’re wavering until you get near the end,” he said, but dismissed the other candidates as unviable. “There’s no other choice today.”

One Orthodox leader, who spoke anonymously to address private discussions, suggested that “by the end of next week” endorsements would likely begin to roll in. 

A major Satmar faction in Williamsburg, home to the largest Hasidic community in New York City, is currently planning to endorse Cuomo the week after next, according to a community leader familiar with the matter.

“Nothing is final until final,” the community leader clarified on Friday, “but that’s the expectation.”

Corey O’Connor prevailed in his bid to oust Mayor Ed Gainey of Pittsburgh in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, dealing a major blow to the activist left in a city where progressives had until recently been ascendant.

O’Connor, the Allegheny County controller and a centrist challenger, defeated Gainey, the first-term incumbent aligned with the far left, by a significant six-point margin, 53-47%, on Tuesday evening with most of the vote counted.

“We built this campaign with and for the people of this city, neighborhood by neighborhood,” O’Connor said in a social media post on Tuesday night. “I’m proud to be your Democratic nominee for Mayor. I’m ready to get to work, and I’m grateful to have you with me as we take the next steps forward, together.”

The primary, which drew national attention in the final weeks, grew increasingly acrimonious — featuring particularly sharp divisions over Israel as well as antisemitism that served as a prelude for the sort of intra-Democratic clashes poised to emerge in several races for federal office next year.

During his tenure, Gainey, who had likewise unseated an incumbent when he was elected as Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor four years ago, drew frequent criticism from the city’s Jewish leaders over his alleged lack of outreach and for a record of offensive commentary on Israel’s war in Gaza, among other issues.

O’Connor, for his part, touted his long-standing ties to Pittsburgh’s sizable and politically active Jewish community, while reiterating his support for Israel and condemning rising antisemitism during the campaign.

Previously, O’Connor, the son of a former mayor of Pittsburgh, served on the City Council representing the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill — where he was also raised.

O’Connor will face Tony Moreno, the Republican nominee, in the November election, but the race is not expected to be competitive as Pittsburgh is a heavily Democratic city.

On paper, Shaun Donovan seems to stand out as an eminently qualified candidate for New York City mayor. The 55-year-old housing and urban development expert with two master’s degrees is a policy wonk who held top jobs in the Obama White House and Bloomberg mayoral administration, and in conversation, he projects an air of academic forbearance reminiscent of his former bosses.

In his 200-page campaign policy book, released last month, Donovan lays out his painstakingly detailed and rather creatively rendered plan for New York City as it emerges from the ravages of the pandemic, calling for equity bonds of $1,000 for every child and envisioning a plan to engineer a series of “15-minute neighborhoods” in which “a great public school, fresh food, rapid transportation, a beautiful park and a chance to get ahead” are all within walking distance.

On Tuesday, Donovan announced a new initiative, “70 Plans in 70 Days,” in which he will lay out one new policy proposal every day until the Democratic primary on June 22 — a meticulous approach he is hoping will set his candidacy apart from the crowded field as a “campaign of ideas.”

“The plan for New York City is the best expression of that, and I really do have the boldest, most comprehensive ideas about the future of this city,” Donovan boasted in a recent interview with Jewish Insider. “But I also have the deepest experience in government to be able to ensure that those ideas can make a real difference in people’s lives.”

Donovan’s proposals have, appropriately enough, earned plaudits from serious policy experts in New York. 

“I’ve been impressed with Shaun Donovan’s focus on getting New Yorkers back to work,” said Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director for the Center for an Urban Future. “He has identified a number of strong models that New York City can build on — from apprenticeship programs to nonprofit tech training — and made it clear that he would invest heavily in skills-building infrastructure. That’s what the city will need to rebound from the current crisis and build a more equitable economy in the future.”

But it remains to be seen if Donovan has the wherewithal to pull off an upset. Several analysts who spoke with JI described the mayoral hopeful as a “talented” individual, while also observing that, despite his policy chops, voters don’t seem to be rallying behind him.

Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, testifies at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on Nov. 6, 2013. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

“Shaun Donovan is a tremendously talented public servant,” said David Greenfield, the CEO of the Met Council and a former city council member. “The challenge that he faces is that he’s always sort of been in the background and therefore doesn’t have the same political profile as some of the more active and better-known political candidates, many of whom have either held office or run for higher-profile office before.”

Polling suggests as much. Donovan seems to be lagging significantly behind the apparent frontrunners in the race, including Andrew Yang, the charismatic former presidential candidate; Eric Adams, the brash Brooklyn borough president; and Scott Stringer, the seasoned city comptroller.

But Donovan remains uncowed, citing another set of statistics that he claims supports his case. “I wouldn’t trade my place in this race with anyone,” he said. “I think it’s reflected in polling that New Yorkers want change and they want experience at this moment, and I really believe I’m the only candidate that represents both of those in the sense that nearly every other candidate is, in some way, part of the status quo.”

Donovan, of course, isn’t exactly a fresh face in New York City government, though it has been some time since he was on the scene enacting what experts characterized as meaningful change.

From 2004 to 2009, he served as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s housing commissioner, creating the city’s first inclusionary housing program offering “density bonuses to developers who agree to set aside units as affordable,” according to Ingrid Ellen, a professor at New York University who specializes in housing.

“He left a legacy of improving the lives of so many people who don’t have the means to get habitable housing,” said Rabbi David Niederman, president and executive director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, who worked with Donovan on issues of affordable housing back in the aughts.

Following his tenure in city government, Donovan accepted an appointment from former President Barack Obama to helm the Department of Housing and Urban Development, during which time he helped lead a revitalization task force in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, among other things.

“I worked extremely closely with mayors across the country and saw, again and again, that particularly at a time when our national politics could be divisive and dysfunctional, mayors really touch people’s lives,” said Donovan, who went on to lead the Office of Management and Budget under Obama. “They are close to the ground. They are the leaders that can make the most difference in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers and people in their communities.”

In conversation with JI, Donovan, who was raised on the Upper East Side, emphasized his family’s own personal connection to New York as an explanation for why he is now mounting a mayoral bid. 

His father, Michael Donovan, an advertising executive, had Jewish, Catholic and Protestant grandparents, and was “beaten up as a child because of that,” Donovan said. Michael, who was born in Panama and grew up in Costa Rica, “had a deep connection to his Irish roots, but also a sense of being an outsider,” Donovan added. “He came to the U.S. to go to school like so many immigrants, and then came to New York to find opportunity, and found it.”

“I would say my entire family owes everything to New York in a fundamental way,” Donovan elaborated. “But at the same time, I also grew up in New York in the 1970s and ’80s. I saw homelessness exploding on the streets. I saw the South Bronx and so many other communities around the city struggling, even burning to the ground, and that really lit a fire in me to go to work on behalf of this city that I love.”

Shaun Donovan

“My platform is really about repairing and rebuilding the city but also about reimagining it as a city that works for everyone,” said Donovan, who advocates for investments in bus rapid transit as well as keeping libraries open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so New Yorkers will have increased access to broadband.

But getting elected and implementing such policies is in many ways a more challenging task than earning an appointment to public office, particularly in New York, where many prominent figures have tried and failed to do so, including Joe Lhota, Richard Ravitch and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 

“This is a longstanding challenge,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning who directs the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. “It’s not unusual that people who succeed in appointed life can’t make it in New York City politics.”

Donovan seems intent on proving that he will be an exception to the rule. In the first TV ad of the race, released in February, he painted himself as a veteran of the Obama administration with ties to the current president, Joe Biden — though such appeals appear largely to have gone unnoticed as other candidates gain traction. 

“Donovan’s going to have to do something creative over the next couple of months to be able to catch people’s attention and be, if not their number one choice, their second or third,” said Jake Dilemani, a managing director in Mercury’s New York office.

Donovan is now mounting an aggressive TV ad blitz as he seeks to earn name recognition in the new ranked-choice voting system, buoyed by $2 million in independent expenditures from his father. “I am following the law,” Donovan said of his father’s super PAC contributions in an interview with WNYC host Brian Lehrer on Tuesday. “There are dozens of these groups supporting many different candidates who are running, and I don’t coordinate with any of them.”

In the end, Donovan, who has staked out a position, for better or worse, as one of the brainiest candidates in the race, wants to focus on the ideas. “I think, especially in this moment of crisis, New Yorkers are really hungry for a mayor who has the boldest ideas about how we rebuild our health and our economy, how we make this a more equitable city.”

“Shaun Donovan is very smart, very capable and very knowledgeable about New York City,” Moss acknowledged. But in the highly competitive mayoral race, he said, “It’s not enough to be smart.”