They gave him all the venomous hate they had: their nefarious billionaires, their genocide-supporting rabbis, their Islamophobic hatemongers, their stinking tabloids, their bought and paid for television stations, their fake news, their AI-powered Instagram feeds – even their president – and they still failed miserably.
Mayor Mamdani of New York: let the river run.
In the heat of the final week of the mayoral campaign in New York City in late October 2025, a group of pro-Israel rabbis published a letter against Zohran Mamdani, detailing why they were leading a crusade against the sole Muslim candidate.
The very title of their letter, “The Jewish Majority”, was fake news – a fraudulent claim, as there is no verifiable reason to believe this squad of wealthy and reactionary rabbis actually represents the majority of Jewish New Yorkers.
It is a typical hasbara technique, seeking to discredit countless other rabbis and their constituencies who refused to be part of this smear campaign. Quite the contrary, a significant portion of Jewish New Yorkers supported Mamdani and even campaigned for him.
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The statement of militant Zionist rabbis began with a bizarre logical inconsistency: “As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities (sic) to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation.”
When rabbis write to their congregations, they cannot claim to do so in a personal capacity. This logical incoherence allows them to have their cake and eat it too: asserting rabbinic authority to tell people how to vote while feigning a “separation of church and state” to enjoy their tax exemptions.
Targeting a Muslim
Logical inconsistency, however, was not the only issue. The rabbis’ statement deliberately targeted Mamdani because he called a spade a spade and, like countless others around the globe, including Israeli institutions, he called the genocide in Gaza a genocide.
Countless Jews joined thousands of other New Yorkers who actively supported Mamdani and worked to get him elected. This angers the genocidal Zionists even more
The rabbis supporting that genocide, and wishing the world would look the other way, did not like that bit of truth-telling. Not all rabbis, to be sure, are among these supporting the genocide in Gaza. Countless others refused to sign that racist, bigoted obscenity drafted by reactionary rabbis in tune with Israeli crimes against humanity.
Countless Jews joined thousands of other New Yorkers who actively supported Mamdani and worked to get him elected. This angers the genocidal Zionists even more.
What we witnessed in New York since the primaries last June was not a battle between Jews and Muslims. It was a battle between Jewish leaders who supported the genocide in Gaza and their shrinking constituencies on one side, and on the other, the world at large that has witnessed a vicious and still-unfolding Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
This mayoral election was also a barometer of millions of Americans defying the billionaire class and their handpicked rabbis abusing US resources to support crimes against humanity.
Rainbow coalition
The genocidal rabbis, their billionaire backers, their daily tabloids led by The New York Times, the New York Post, Fox News, and the newly bought and paid for CBS News did all they could to demonise the sole Muslim candidate in the city’s history – and still they lost.
They lost not to Muslims, but to a rainbow coalition of New Yorkers that includes a healthy number of liberated Jewish voters reclaiming the autonomy and dignity of their own faith.
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These Zionist rabbis have no objection to the actual genocide the world has witnessed, but they object to it being called a genocide. They wish to be party to slaughtering an entire nation – men, women and children – but they object to people naming it as such.
They “feel” threatened.
In this mayoral campaign from June to November, Mamdani exposed the vast Islamophobic machinery that genocidal Zionists drive to fetishise, alienate, and demonise millions of Muslim Americans on behalf of the European settler colony they support.
Mamdani is a Muslim, born to a Muslim father and a Hindu mother. He denounces the Israeli genocide of Palestinians. He does not believe in a racist apartheid regime ruling the Israeli settler colony.
He says if the war criminal fugitive Israeli warlord Benjamin Netanyahu comes to New York, he will abide by international law and have him arrested. He refused to kiss the ring of the Zionist mafia and proclaim that he would go to Israel if elected mayor.
He is the nightmare of Zionists – and from their billionaires to their rabbis to their media organs, they came together to assassinate his character and kill his chances. The oligarchy failed.
Courageous Jewish allies
In nearly 40 years of living in New York, I have not seen – not even after 9/11 – Islamophobic hatred so venomous as I have seen since the June primaries.
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Genocidal Zionists are the primary machinery of this hatred in the US. They bank on it, fuel it, and fan the flames. They cry “antisemitism” if anyone breathes a word critical of the settler colony, while actively propagating Muslim hatred.
It is crucial for the world to know that a significant segment of Jewish New Yorkers has actively and courageously opposed this smear campaign against Muslims.
“We the undersigned Jewish New Yorkers,” reads one statement, “believe that our future is beautifully intertwined with that of every other community in this city. We are working alongside our neighbours to build a truly representative multiracial democracy where every person can thrive.” This is the soul of Judaism reclaimed and staged as Mamdani was poised to lead New York.
Evidence of a post-Zionist critical consciousness is overwhelming.
“As antisemitism and Islamophobia both rise in America,” reads another powerful statement, “we understand that our fates are bound together… Our traditions teach us that justice is indivisible – we are only truly safe when we ensure the safety and dignity of all. This is not merely strategic; it is sacred.”
This is post-Zionist Jewish liberation theology at work.
Support for Mamdani in New York is not limited to post-Zionist Jews. It extends to Israelis. “I’m an Israeli who lives in New York. Here’s why I’m voting for Mamdani,” explained Libby Lenkinski in The Forward.
“Mamdani sat in the front row [of the synagogue] with Rep Jerry Nadler and Comptroller Brad Lander. As Lau-Lavie welcomed them to the space, Nadler and Lander were greeted with respectful applause. But when Mamdani’s name was spoken, something electric ripped through the room. The applause didn’t just rise, it roared. It was long, sustained, defiant, joyful,” she added.
Israelis are beginning to imagine themselves in a world liberated from the genocidal ideology that has duped them for generations. New York – and the world, in particular, Palestinians – welcome them wholeheartedly.
Unifying force
Against the Zionist propaganda machinery at work, Mamdani is the most unifying force in the entire city, while The New York Times continues to manufacture and fuel a Jewish anxiety against him. Jewish communities are integral to his campaign – liberated from the pangs of genocidal Zionism, regaining their humanity, and reclaiming their Judaism in the fold of humanity at large, where it belongs.
Years ago, I wrote “Why Muslims must be at the forefront of fighting antisemitism.” Our task as Muslims remains steady, steadfast, and doubled down today more than ever, in New York and around the world. We are our sisters’ and brothers’ keeper.
Ordinary people, among them Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and an entire rainbow coalition of decency came together and declared their defiant souls: we work this city, we own it
New York is a gloriously diverse city – the envy of the world – on par with London, Paris, Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, Delhi, Tokyo and Mexico City. Mamdani represents the working class of native New Yorkers and immigrants who wake early each morning and make this city work.
The billionaire club, their Zionist rabbis and allies, their news media and the corrupt politicians in their pockets all came together to defeat a Muslim candidate – and failed.
Ordinary people, among them Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and an entire rainbow coalition of decency came together and declared their defiant souls: we work this city, we own it. We are both democratic and socialist. And we have malice towards none.
The corrupt and irredeemable Democratic Party – from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – have sold their souls to Aipac and to all the highest bidders to their pathetic power-mongering. The distance they have kept from Mamdani is the distance they will always have from the common core of our humanity – and the dawn of a new American politics.
The cowardice and paralysis of the Democratic Party and its leading weaklings in the face of Mamdani’s courage and imagination, tapping into massive public discontent, mark a watershed between the pre- and post-Mamdani eras of American politics.
At the 11th hour, the conniving Obama joined the bandwagon, calling Mamdani to offer a hollow endorsement and his services as a “sounding board”. Mamdani should listen carefully to whatever Obama says – and do precisely the opposite of every word.
Finally comes the sublime poetic justice: from the hearts and minds of the very Columbia University department that genocidal Zionists gathered at Trump’s royal court to shut down, the son of one of its most senior members has now emerged as mayor of New York – and, in many ways, as the living embodiment of that department’s flowering achievement.
The irony is so thick you could carve on it a group portrait of Elise Stefanik, Bari Weiss, Stephen Miller, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump and the zionist billionaires propping them up to negate the truth and delay justice.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
