NEW YORK – On the eve of a historic election, New York City’s Jewish community, the largest in the nation, finds itself in a state of heightened tension and division. The election could potentially usher in the city’s first Muslim mayor.

The candidate at the center of this political moment is Zohran Mamdani, who has garnered significant support among progressive Jewish voters. His campaign promises to enhance affordability and promote equity across the city. However, Mamdani’s outspoken criticisms of Israel, including his characterization of its military actions in Gaza as genocide, have sparked concern among many Jews both in New York and nationwide.

The community’s internal discord was notably highlighted during a recent sermon by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, a leading Reform congregation in the United States.

In her sermon, Rabbi Buchdahl expressed disapproval of Mamdani’s comments regarding Israel but refrained from endorsing his rivals, Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. She urged the Jewish community to avoid escalating political conflicts.

“It’s dangerous for all of us when we enforce a litmus test on fellow Jews, effectively saying you’re either with us or against us,” she remarked.

A local election in the national spotlight

Buchdahl has faced some criticism for not signing a statement endorsed by more than 1,000 Jewish clergy members nationwide denouncing Mamdani. She said that on principle, she doesn’t endorse candidates or sign joint statements, but she interrupted her sabbatical schedule to return to her pulpit the weekend before the election.

In the sermon, Buchdahl said Mamdani has “contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism” with words that she said were not only “demonizing Israelis, but echoing the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews across the world are the root cause of our problem here.”

Mamdani has made overtures to Jewish voters throughout the campaign, promising to increase funding to investigate antisemitic incidents in New York and repeatedly condemning violence in the Middle East. He has also denounced “atrocities” committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, describing the attacks as a “horrific war crime.”

But Mamdani has not retreated from his long-standing support for Palestinian rights. He also has said he would direct the city’s police department to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York on charges brought by the International Criminal Court.

In response to allegations that his views amount to antisemitism, Mamdani has often quoted an Israeli man whose brother was killed on Oct. 7, saying that “we must never give up on the conviction that all life, Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab, is equally precious.”

Buchdahl, in her sermon, said she recognizes the voices of younger Jews who say they shouldn’t fearfully vote based on a “single issue when other issues are just as urgent.” They cite Mamdani’s outreach to Jewish leaders and his moderated rhetoric.

“I would not quickly trust a campaigning politician changing his lifelong positions, but I hear those who believe that we must engage even with those we deeply disagree with or risk isolating ourselves,” Buchdahl said.

Leading rabbi: It’s not a simple choice

Like Buchdahl, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, New York-based Rabbi Rick Jacobs, said he was sticking by his long-held decision to avoid making political endorsements.

“If you think the choice for mayor is simple, I respectfully suggest that you are not paying attention,” Jacobs wrote in an open letter last week. “I implore our Jewish community and all New Yorkers to carefully consider the many urgent issues our city faces before casting your vote.”

“I can attest that Zohran Mamdani is not lacking in empathy for the Jewish community’s anxiety over regular threats to our safety. In public interviews and in a personal meeting, I’ve heard him pledge to protect the Jewish community,” wrote Jacobs, before raising doubts about the Democratic candidate.

“Mamdani has been consistent in saying that he believes Israel has a right to exist as a state of all its citizens, but not as a Jewish state,” Jacobs wrote. “His argument might sound tidy in a seminar; in the real world it is cause for grave concern.”

Among the signatories of the anti-Mamdani statement was a prominent Conservative rabbi from New York, Elliot Cosgrove.

“To be clear, unequivocal and on the record, I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community,” Cosgrove declared at the start of a recent sermon at Park Avenue Synagogue.

“Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination — these are not political preferences or partisan talking points,” Cosgrove added. “They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity.”

Even Hasidic leaders are divided

As evidence of the divisions within Jewish ranks, there have been competing endorsements of Mamdani and Cuomo by leaders of different factions within the Satmar Hasidic community.

On Sunday, Rabbi Moshe Indig, a leader of the community’s Ahronim branch, declared his support for Mamdani, posing in a handshake with the candidate at a meeting in Brooklyn. Within hours, three other leaders of the branch repudiated Indig’s action and endorsed Cuomo.

“Across the board, the progressive movement’s crusading agenda is a threat to our ability to live as Torah Jews and educate our children with the same values,” the pro-Cuomo leaders said.

To the left of the political center, New York-based author and commentator Peter Beinhart spoke in a recent video of his dismay at the vitriol being directed at Mamdani by many Jewish leaders.

Beinhart said he worries “that the organized American Jewish community was willing to sacrifice almost anything to preserve unconditional support for the state of Israel, that every other value, every other principle was subordinated to that.”

“What are you willing to sacrifice in order to prevent a New York mayor who says that Israeli Jews and Palestinians should live equally under the same law? What are you willing to try to do to destroy such a candidate? The answer is: lie with almost anyone, do almost anything.”

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Smith reported from Pittsburgh. AP journalist Jake Offenhartz contributed from New York.

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