Prominent Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch left a meeting on Thursday afternoon with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and a dozen diverse rabbis and community leaders feeling “encouraged,” saying that there is “reason to be optimistic” that Mamdani will protect the Jewish community.  

Still, given Mamdani’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America and antagonistic views on Israel — including his refusal to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” —  Hirsch told Jewish Insider there remains “reason for the New York Jewish community to be anxious about Israel and safety.”

“I hope that our concerns will be proven to be less acute given the mayor-elect’s behavior in office, but we’ll have to wait and see,” said Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Upper West Side’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and a self-described liberal who voiced opposition to Mamdani throughout the mayoral election. 

Hirsch, who spoke with JI following the mayor-elect’s private meeting with the New York Board of Rabbis, of which Hirsch is the president, said he was “encouraged by [Mamdani’s] willingness to continue to dialogue, knowing in advance that he’s going into meetings with people who have significant disagreements with him, and that he continues to be open to having these kinds of discussions.”

“That’s good for the New York Jewish community,” he continued. “I wasn’t surprised that this meeting happened because I think he is making an effort to reach out to as many representatives, particularly in the Jewish community, as he can. I think he’s trying to do that for his own sense of what is in his political interest and the well-being of the Jewish community. There’s reason to be optimistic.” 

The meeting was held just weeks before Mamdani’s Jan. 1 inauguration — and as the Jewish community remains divided about his victory. Hirsch was among the leading Jewish voices expressing concern during Mamdani’s election over his hostility toward Israel. Hirsch also publicly expressed frustration with the lack of organized effort among Jewish leaders to oppose the then-candidate. Days before the election, he told JI that opposition to Mamdani is a Jewish “imperative.” 

Hirsch declined to share the content of Thursday’s meeting, but called it “productive.” 

“The mayor-elect stayed a little longer than anticipated so we were pleased with that,” he told JI. “He listened attentively. We shared our concerns. We agreed that we’ll set up a mechanism to meet regularly with him and his senior staff so we can keep lines of communication open. We agreed to keep content and details confidential.”  

Ahead of the meeting, invitees told CNN that several rabbis planned to “propose a unified agenda, asking Mamdani to back away from his rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” and his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Some Jewish leaders also said they “will put pressure on other New York officials like Gov. Kathy Hochul and incoming city council speaker Julie Menin to not work with Mamdani more broadly if he follows through on promised anti-Israel moves and doesn’t provide more reassurances to Jews in the city.” 

In addition to Hirsch, other rabbis in attendance on Thursday, according to CNN, included Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-El, a Reform synagogue; and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Modern Orthodox Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue.  

“It’s in the interest of the Jewish community to keep an open line of communication with [Mamdani],” said Hirsch. “He’s a talented politician and very charismatic. You can understand how he was able to connect with people. I hope, for our sake and the sake of New York generally, he will pursue the policy matters that he ran on and not focus on things that happen overseas.” 

On Wednesday night, Mamdani — wearing a kippah — attended an event hosted by the Satmar Hasidic movement in Brooklyn marking Kuf Alef Kislev, an annual celebration of the Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum’s escape from the Nazis in 1944. The New York City Satmar movement, which is anti-Zionist, was split over its endorsement of Mamdani during the election.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The letter goes on to urge “interfaith and communal partners to stand with the Jewish community in rejecting this dangerous rhetoric and to affirm the rights of Jews to live securely and with dignity.”

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