The election dividing American Jews

New Yorkers will elect their next mayor on Tuesday. As I mentioned earlier, this election stopped being a purely local one long ago, thanks to the uproar stirred by Zionist groups. Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary, was branded “anti-Semitic” by Zionist circles simply because he criticized Israel’s genocide in Palestine.

Another reason for Zionist outrage is that a majority of young Jewish New Yorkers are supporting Mamdani. Pro-Israel billionaires, led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are funneling large sums of money into the campaign of Andrew Cuomo—who is running as an independent—in an effort to block Mamdani’s victory. Cuomo, however, had already lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary.

Both Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa have built their campaigns on the false claim that Mamdani is “anti-Jewish.” Coming from Italian Catholic families, both men are now trying to portray themselves as lifelong defenders of Jewish interests. Sliwa has even gone so far as to say that the two children he had through IVF with his former Jewish partner are being “raised Jewish,” hoping to win over New York’s religious Jewish voters.

Depicted by Zionists as a “jihadi Muslim,” Zohran Mamdani, in contrast, has focused his campaign on addressing the city’s real issues. In earlier interviews, while other candidates boasted that their first foreign visit after the election would be to “Israel,” Mamdani said he intended to stay in the city and focus on his duties.

Mamdani appears to have split Jewish communities not just in New York but across other states as well. Some rabbis have used mainstream outlets like The New York Times to urge Jewish voters not to support him, while others have announced that they back no candidate at all. Several rabbis have also voiced discomfort with how the attacks on Mamdani have turned into outright Islamophobia. They argue that his pro-Palestinian stance stems not from hatred of Jews but from a deep moral conviction. As some of them put it, “Jewish safety should not be built on Muslim vulnerability.”

The Zionist campaign against Mamdani—who earned his candidacy through the Democratic primary in a state governed by Democratic mayors, governors, and legislatures—has also drawn sharp criticism from within the Democratic base itself. Among the party’s younger members, criticizing Israel is no longer seen as radical or fringe—it’s become mainstream. Meanwhile, the party’s entrenched, pro-Israel leadership is struggling to respond, resorting to what could be summed up as “one step forward, two steps back.”

Another issue complicating matters for Jewish communities in New York and beyond is Cuomo’s past. In 2021, he resigned as governor amid a flood of sexual harassment allegations. Had he refused to step down, the Democrat-controlled State Assembly was expected to impeach him. At the time, top Democrats—including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Jewish-American—called for Cuomo’s resignation. Now, however, Schumer remains conspicuously silent.

Meanwhile, feminist Jewish women have reacted strongly to the calls from some Jewish groups and rabbis to support Andrew Cuomo. Some pro-Israel Jewish feminists argue that reluctantly backing Cuomo is still the right choice, but younger Jewish voters are angry that their religious leaders seem so willing to abandon moral and ethical principles for political expediency.

The smear campaign against Mamdani has even made its way into British media. The Times of London published a story quoting former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio as criticizing Mamdani. American outlets picked up the story, but de Blasio later posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the report was false and that he in fact supports Mamdani. The newspaper retracted the article and issued an apology to de Blasio, claiming it had been misled.

Despite the barrage of Zionist “disinformation campaigns,” Mamdani still leads in the polls. As the developments suggest, Zionist efforts won’t just stop at influencing public opinion—they’ll also be present at the ballot box on Tuesday.