A Post-Liberal Takes New York

Mayor-elect Mamdani insists that antisemitism has no place in his city, and that he will do everything in his power to ensure it does not rear its ugly head. Yet that would require moderating the utopian vision upon which his political career is premised.

Zohran Mamdani is set to take over the mayoralty of New York City, against a backdrop of a globalized intifada. Especially after the carnage at Bondi Beach in Australia, where Islamists gunned down Jews at a Chanukah celebration in an eerie echo of October 7, 2023, Mamdani’s history of vitriol against “Zionists” has some Jewish New Yorkers fearing that it will soon be open season in the largest diaspora Jewish community. Mamdani has not helped his cause by surrounding himself with and, and with his to an illegal mob intimidating Jews outside a synagogue in early December. Touting “the warmth of collectivism” surely sends an additional shiver down the spines of New York’s sizable population of Jewish emigres from the Soviet Union.

Those who wish New York’s Jews harm may try to cleanse their violence with the redemptive label of anti-Zionism. Among certain factions within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), that ploy has purchase; the Liberation Caucus, a self-described “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist” sub-group within DSA, murdering Zionists around the world. The Liberation Caucus remains in good standing with the national organization. Megan Romer, co-chair of DSA’s governing body, has that “we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and… no socialist should.” If Mamdani equivocates when Jews are attacked for supporting Israel or even if they turn out to be Zionists, no one ought to be surprised.

With all that said, it’s still not the most likely course for New York’s near future. The same agitators will continue to chant about globalizing the intifada, but Mayor-elect Mamdani isn’t going to let people get away with blowing up buses and cafes, even if his father argued that suicide bombing should be “understood” rather than “stigmatized.” If, God forbid, there is a Bondi Beach-scale attack on New York’s Jews, Mamdani is savvy enough to condemn all violence against Jews. Even illegal demonstrations (of the kind Mamdani used to participate in) drew half a condemnation. The groups that organize intimidation campaigns against supporters of Israel do not consider it strategically viable to engage in outright violence, for the most part and for now; that doesn’t mean the threat of a handful of Islamists or leftists taking up arms is nonexistent, but it does mean that a literal intifada is effectively deterred for the time being.

That doesn’t mean Jewish New Yorkers’ worries about a Mamdani mayoralty are overblown. To the contrary, the most concerning aspect of Mamdani’s rise has barely been discussed.