Zohran Mamdani tries to reassure Jewish voters in NYC worried about his ascendance

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

New York (CNN) — The gathering was inside the Brooklyn home of a Jewish film director. The crowd, according to several people in attendance, was skeptical.

Zohran Mamdani had arrived to greet approximately 60 people, at least half of them Modern Orthodox, who for the most part are more religiously observant than the progressives in Mamdani’s base.

Some guests, according to sources who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss the private mid-August event, wondered if a potential Mamdani administration would stop dispatching the New York Police Department to stand watch at synagogues when needed. Mamdani, without hesitation, said he would provide the security.

One of the attendees told him that their friend, a Jewish woman, had recently been harassed and called a slur while pushing a stroller down a city street.

Mamdani told them he was sorry about what they had experienced and said he believed it wasn’t helpful to either the Israeli or Palestinian causes if people supporting either side felt like they couldn’t walk outside without fear.

And while he reaffirmed his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Israeli government and economy, Mamdani also promised he would keep in place police protection for the city’s annual parade honoring Israel.

“It’s obvious that he grew up around Jews and that he is comfortable, he can crack a culturally relevant joke, he recognizes people in the crowd,” said one person who attended the gathering.

Mamdani is both a prominent and unapologetic critic of Israel as well as the front-runner to be the next mayor of New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Ever since his stunning victory in June’s Democratic primary, Mamdani has built alliances with politically liberal Jewish officials while meeting with and listening to some of his most strident critics.

Among some Jewish New Yorkers already on edge from the spike in antisemitism and attacks in recent years, fears highlighted by a deadly attack Thursday on a British synagogue, some of Mamdani’s positions and perceived lack of sensitivity to their concerns have bred suspicion and anxiety.

Those feelings cut across lines of age, religiosity and geography, even among otherwise committed progressive voters, and persist even as he has emphasized his commitment to fighting antisemitism. Facing pressure and persistent media questions, Mamdani has condemned Hamas and discouraged use of the phrase “globalize the intifada.”

“Jewish New Yorkers are by no means a monolith, and Zohran has made clear that he’s eager to meet with every part of the Jewish community, whether they disagree with him or helped power him to victory in the primary,” said Jeffrey Lerner, a campaign spokesperson, in a statement to CNN.

In recent months, Mamdani has visited synagogues and sat for Friday evening Shabbat services. His campaign receives informal advice from some of the more progressive Jewish groups in the city. But he also in recent weeks met with Hasidic leaders, including two prominent rabbis from Williamsburg’s Satmar community, an ultra-Orthodox sect with its own set of demands of city government.

During Rosh Hashanah, Mamdani attended service at Kolot Chayeinu, one of Brooklyn’s most progressive synagogues. For Yom Kippur, considered the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Mamdani attended service at Lab Shul, a non-denominational Jewish congregation. He was accompanied by Rep. Jerry Nadler and City Comptroller Brad Lander, both prominent Jewish politicians in New York who have endorsed Mamdani.

Mamdani received loud applause, according to three people in attendance, as he was seated in the front row while Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie delivered the sermon.

But one thing is consistent: There is a general skittishness even from left-leaning groups about publicly admitting they have hosted Mamdani. Some synagogues have welcomed him but have not wanted to publicize it. None of the mainstream Jewish organizations who met with Mamdani would disclose details about their meetings on the record.

Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the New York Jewish Agenda, a nonpartisan advocacy organization that has met with Mamdani, said there is no “single Jewish feeling about this candidate.”

“The divisions are increasingly painful for us, but the fact that we would have voted for different candidates is not new for us,” Wisdom said. “Should he be mayor, which polls suggest is a very likely outcome, I would encourage him to continue to reach out to all parts of New York’s Jewish community and also encourage all parts of our community to be receptive to meeting with him.

“It’s best for us all if he has a real familiarity with the full diversity of our community,” she added.

For some, Mamdani’s visits, meetings and private conversations are evidence he has worked to deliver on a promise he made on primary night when he told the crowd he would work to “understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements.”

But for others, Mamdani has fallen short, not doing enough to publicly assure the Jewish community that he is committed to their safety and well-being if elected mayor. They argue Mamdani has only met with audiences who are most likely to be friendly, which his campaign disputes.

At the Brooklyn meeting, people wanted to know if Mamdani planned on holding his future top hires to ideological litmus tests. He responded by telling them he did not care if his future sanitation commissioner – or any other bureaucrat – disagreed with him on Israel.

Instead, he said, he planned to hire whoever would be the best person to oversee pickup of the 44 million pounds of waste the city produces every day.

Why Mamdani has stirred anxiety and how Cuomo is trying to capitalize

While no sitting New York City mayor has an explicit role in foreign policy, Israel remains a constant theme in the mayoral race. The conversation has become even more focused in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza.

Mamdani, a Muslim who was born in Uganda to parents of Indian origin, has called Israel’s offensive a genocide and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a warrant from the International Criminal Court, should be arrested.

Democrats and younger Americans across the political spectrum have grown more negative toward the Jewish state, even as support for Israel remains key for many Jewish voters.

Some of Mamdani’s Jewish critics also point to his agenda and connections to the Democratic Socialists of America. Mamdani wants to raise taxes on the rich and freeze rent hikes in city-stabilized apartments, a challenge to the real-estate industry, though several prominent developers and investors who oppose him cite his positions on Israel and antisemitism.

Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau last month convened a meeting of real-estate leaders to hear from Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani in the June primary and is now running as an independent.

During a different private meeting, a prominent CEO grilled Mamdani over his defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which Mamdani has not himself used and has since said he would discourage others from using.

Since Mayor Eric Adams announced he was dropping his re-election bid, Cuomo has ramped up his efforts to court the city’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was seen as largely supportive of Adams.

In a video posted to social media, Cuomo issued an apology for his response during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic when he was governor. In the video, posted on the eve of Yom Kippur, Cuomo said he regretted placing limits on the size of religious gatherings during the pandemic. Orthodox communities interpreted those limits as unfairly singling them out.

Days earlier, Cuomo had secured the endorsement of a Crown Heights Jewish group representing Orthodox communities.

Cuomo has long aligned himself with pro-Israel groups. Last year Cuomo said he was joining a legal defense team for Netanyahu. During the primary, Cuomo was critical of Mamdani’s support for the BDS movement, pressing him multiple times during a primary debate about whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Mamdani has said Israel should provide equal rights to all residents.

But Cuomo himself has pivoted since losing the primary, calling for an end to the war in Gaza while continuing to accuse Mamdani of fueling antisemitism.

“I think this whole thing speaks more about the psychology of the American Jewry and their organizations right now than (Mamdani),” said a board member of a prominent national organization that does not endorse in local elections but recently met with Mamdani. “His position is a winning one and it could be like a canary in a coal mine that this is going to play out even more in national politics, and it won’t be comfortable.”

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed to this report.

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