In the days before New Yorkers went to the polls, Wall Street billionaires and their media unleashed a barrage of lies, branding Zohran Mamdani a “Jew-hater.” It was a lie designed to destroy his campaign. And it didn’t work.
Over 1,100 Rabbis signed a petition labeling Zohran Mamdani an enemy of the Jewish people. According to these rabbis, Mamdani opposes Jewish self-determination simply because he refuses to support a U.S.-backed apartheid terror state.
Liel Leibovitz, editor of Tablet magazine, went so far as to declare that “any congregation that will accept Zohran Mamdani over Yom Kippur is not a Jewish congregation.” Such a statement is stunningly hateful — reducing the entirety of Judaism to the defense of genocide. No Jewish congregation worth its name would turn away a person based on faith, nationality, or political views.
Fascist-in-chief Donald Trump also jumped into the fray over Mamdani’s supposed “antisemitism.” True to form, Trump frothed, “Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self-professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” This from the same man who claimed there were “fine people on both sides” when neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville. For what it’s worth, the Jewish author of this article prefers to seek insight on antisemitism from someone other than a proven antisemite and demagogue.
Even with the massive propaganda blitz against him, Zohran Mamdani — a pro-Palestine, Muslim Democratic Socialist — won 33% of the Jewish vote in New York City. It’s true that Andrew Cuomo carried the majority of the still Zionist-leaning community with about 60%. But the fact that Mamdani won a third of the Jewish vote, despite the lies and hysteria, reveals deep cracks in the imperialist narrative surrounding “Israel.”
The fact that the Jewish community may be more divided on Mamdani — and, consequently, on Zionism — than the mainstream led us to believe became clear as the election drew closer. In response to the landslide of antisemitism accusations against the now soon-to-be Mayor Mamdani, a multitude of progressive Jewish organizations and individuals spoke out. Hundreds of rabbis and everyday Jewish people signed their own letter denouncing the attacks on Mamdani and supporting his stand against Zionist genocide.
The entire saga once again shows that the imperialist war drive to prop up “Israel” as the U.S. attack dog of West Asia has nothing to do with Judaism — and everything to do with profit. The working-class power behind Mamdani’s campaign represents a real opportunity to deepen revolutionary consciousness and expose the ruling class’s lies — lies like the claim that U.S. funding of a genocidal “Israel” somehow defends Jewish self-determination.
Mamdani’s victory presents a powerful opportunity for revolutionary-minded Jews to continue advancing the struggle for a broader revolution — one capable of toppling U.S. imperialism and the Zionist terror project it sustains. That same opportunity exists within the wider working-class movement. Now is the time to push revolutionary socialism and anti-imperialism more boldly than ever.
Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.
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