A tour of the mayoral hopeful’s Jewish outreach reveals an electorate fractured over Israel and grappling with his historic candidacy in radically different ways
S
ecuring Jewish votes was never going to be a straightforward ride for Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral hopeful who is on track to become the most prominent Palestine supporter to assume elected office in the US – in the most Jewish city outside Israel, no less.
The notion that he could sparks outright panic in some quarters.
“To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the New York Jewish community,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Conservative Upper East Side Park Avenue Synagogue said in a sermon last weekend, a line endorsed by more than 1,000 American rabbis and echoed in the op-ed pages of some of the US’s biggest papers.
