CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

Escape From Mamdani’s New York? That Isn’t the Jewish Way

Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on Oct 27th 2024-Wikipedia
Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on Oct 27th 2024-Wikipedia

 

Dovid Margolin

WSJ, July 3, 2025

“It is ironic that many of the young transplants to New York who voted for Mr. Mamdani live in such places as Crown Heights, unaware that had it not been for increased policing, government reforms they despise, and, most important, the locals who persisted during the city’s darkest days, they wouldn’t have dared enter the neighborhoods they now colonize.”

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary has scared many people. The reasons are varied and warranted, from the eye-watering tax hikes he proposes on businesses to his old commitments to defund the police. Mr. Mamdani’s defense of violent slogans such as “globalize the intifada” doesn’t help.

In recent days many Jews have asked themselves: Where to now? My sister sent me house listings in Maryland, and a friend made the case for Florida. “We won in Tehran and lost in New York,” I heard someone say.

Jews in particular are nervous because they know. Whether from Europe or North Africa, they know what it means to have to flee. They know what it looks like in America, too, when their homes are no longer safe and there is no one to call for help.

They know about the consequences of grand schemes of social engineering. They know what drugs and homelessness do to streets, what government interference does to blocks. They know the human costs of neutering law enforcement, and the antisemitic violence and murder that emerges.

Jews know what it means to see neighborhoods they called home for decades suddenly disintegrate. Go to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville or to the Bronx, to urban neighborhoods from Boston to Chicago, and you can still see the ruins of grand old synagogues and Jewish community centers…..SOURCE

Subscribe to the Isranet Daily Briefing

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices.

To top