By Johnathan Tobin
(JNS) — It was no small irony that I learned the news that Zohran Mamdani would be the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City and the odds-on favorite to win the general election while I was in Medora, N.D., some 1,755 miles from the city of my birth.
I was born in Manhattan, grew up in the New York City area, went to college at Columbia University, and spent much of my early life in and around the city. Though it’s been many years since I resided there, I have always thought of myself as a New Yorker, regularly attending cultural events in the city and rooting for its sports teams. Rural, oil-drilling, country-music-loving North Dakota is about as far from New York in terms of culture and politics as you can get while remaining in the continental United States.
But as many American Jews were panicking about the victory of Mamdani, a far-left Socialist who sides with those who seek Israel’s destruction, being in North Dakota on a trip with members of the Council for a Secure America to learn more about the intersection of interests between supporters of Israel and those who work in the domestic energy industry turned out to be a piece of unexpected good timing. I found myself surrounded by non-Jews who are ardent supporters of the Jewish state and simply appalled by the surge in antisemitism in this country, of which events in New York City are just the latest evidence.
Tempering despair
That was both a comfort on a day when a lot of New York Jews are talking about leaving a Big Apple, as well as a reminder that the current despair about the future of American Jewry should be tempered by remembering some basic truths about the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens who do not practice the same faith.
Polls have shown that the vast majority of Americans have continued to oppose the hatred of Jews and attacks on them, even after the surge was set off by the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023. And though the tsunami of anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda about the war on Hamas and its Iranian sponsors has resulted in a decline in support for Israel, a strong plurality of Americans still back the small, beleaguered nation.
The real divide is along party lines, with Republicans — and to a lesser extent, independents — backing Israel by huge majorities. Among Democrats, support for Israel has become a minority opinion.
And that is why it is important to understand the Mamdani win as revealing more about the future of the Democratic Party, both in terms of its attitudes toward Jews and Israel, as well as a sharp turn to the left on other issues than it does about America as a whole.
A left-wing Democratic base
But the party’s base belongs to the hard left, especially among the younger generation of voters and politicians. It is to people like Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the leader of the progressive “Squad” in the U.S House of Representatives, who many Democrats are now looking for leadership. The faction of the party that was led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was bested by the party’s establishment in 2016 and 2020 when it nominated Hillary Clinton and former President Joe Biden. And it never had a chance in 2024 when the fix was in for the visibly declining incumbent, who was replaced in an undemocratic coup by Vice President Kamala Harris of California.
Mamdani’s win in New York is another sign that the party’s base belongs to those who are deeply influenced by toxic left-wing ideologies like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, all of which falsely label Jews and Israel as “white” oppressors. Mamdani, a Muslim who is, like AOC, a Democratic Socialist, is a former college chapter president of the anti-Israel, antisemitic Students for Justice in Palestine; a supporter of the antisemitic BDS movement; opposes the existence of Israel as a Jewish state; wants to “free Palestine” from the Jews; and won’t even admit that the phrase “globalize the intifada” is, like the ubiquitous chants of “from the river to the sea,” a call for terrorism and genocide of the Jews. Like AOC, he also subscribes to a catalog of far-left ideas about the economy and environmentalism that seek to destroy the canon of Western civilization, which would also ruin the country.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts.
