There is a more local dynamic of Jewish life on the edge of the broader global undoing of political norms and institutional guardrails since the election of Trump in 2016. Beset by deep strains of ethno-nationalism and violent religious supremacy, Israel becomes a politically and symbolically supercharged object in Diaspora Jewish life after October 7, the war against Hamas in Gaza, and spikes in anti-Semitism across the globe. A mirror in larger social reckonings at a moment of technological disruption and political crisis is the curious unhinging across dominant segments of the Jewish Anti-Zionist Left. With each passing year, discourse on the radical flank of the Jewish community has become harshly polarized, increasingly “weird,” and intentionally “decentered” in relation to Jewish social norms.
For those tracking the escalatory messaging at anti-Israel protests, this one outside a synagogue in NYC, and what to expect from Mayor-Elect Mamdani (as cribbed from Luke Terres at the TOI).
Chants “Death to the IDF,” “We don’t want no Zionists here,” “Resistance you make us proud, take another settler out.” “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here” “We don’t want no two states, we want ’48” “Resistance is justified” “No peace on stolen land” “Settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone.”
Crowd abuse and intimidation: The activists later posted videos of Jews entering the synagogue, branding them “settlers” in the videos, while activists shouted “shame” in the background. A protest leader told the crowd, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared” (with the roughly 200 protesters in the crowd repeating each sentence in unison).
Individually targeted acts of hate speech: One woman shouted, “Fucking Jewish pricks,” at passersby, while another yelled, “You’re part of a death cult,” while arguing with a man in a kippah. Another protester held a sign that said, “Pedophiles & rapists are running our government to serve ‘Israel,’” the text overlaid on a photo of US President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Others shouted about the Hannibal Directive, referring to a conspiracy theory that says the IDF was responsible for the Israeli civilian deaths on October 7. “You fucking rapist cunts. You fucking pedophiles. You fucking Epstein pieces of shit,” one woman shouted. On Wednesday night, members of Neturei Karta, which has been condemned by other non-Zionist Hasidic movements, repeatedly stomped on an Israeli flag.
The protest was led by the anti-Zionist activist group Pal-Awda, and was advertised by other organizations around the city, such as the city’s branch of Jewish Voice for Peace and an array of student groups, including two groups from Columbia University.
Spokesperson for Mayor-Elect Mamani kid-gloving and siding with the protestors “The Mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said Thursday. “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
A quick takeaway: Mayor-Elect/Mayor Mamdani will continue to “discourage” but not condemn anti-Israel-anti-Semitic hate speech and will continue to gin up real hatred against Israel under the banner of genocide and in the name of Palestine.
Young people never fail to impress. It is profoundly moving to hear students affirm what our classes mean to them, intellectually and personally. As part of the University led portfolio review of impacted majors across several departments and areas of interdisciplinary study, under the threat of pausing and threat of closing “third-tier” majors, the College of Arts and Sciences held a town hall. We were unsure how many students were going to attend. At 6:00 On a cold Wednesday night the week before the long Thanksgiving break, students filled the large Killian room to talk about the value of the Humanities.
On the negative register, our students face structural impediments to study in the Humanities. Students described how the large programs and professional schools create silos, monopolizing student time with onerous degree requirements. The large programs and professional schools treat students like numbers. Faculty do not create opportunities to dive into deep discussion. The large programs and professional school do not teach human intelligence and communication. Advising is across the board terrible, slotting students into classes that do not speak to them intellectually or emotionally. The Humanities are invisible at Syracuse, as is probably true nationally. Parents are a part of the problem. Tuition is unaffordable. Students are stressed out by neo-liberalism. They are confused about the lack of commitment from the Administration to the Humanities and to student interest in intellectual exploration and growth.
On the positive register, students described passionate commitment to a broad-based civic interest based on human value, purpose, meaning and connection. They love their classes and the Humanities and they love their faculty. They know we see and look at for them. Students want basic things like Religion, Medieval Studies, Languages, History, Women and Gender Studies, Jewish Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Asian American Studies, Art History. We heard shout outs to Dante, Japanese anime, queer sexuality in the medieval period, Dead Sea Scrolls, the Crusades, Buddhism, German language studies, Kabbalah, Italian language studies. In this digital age of AI, students underscored the critical importance of the written word and student essay.
A takeaway: the Humanities and vulnerable programs across the Humanities cannot suffer in silence or give in to pessimism. With student support behind us, faculty need to double down, restore public trust in the work we do, secure our place in the University, make a lot of noise and be visible in public, contribute op-eds and send letters to students newspapers, set up Instagram accounts and other online platforms, lobby and lean into this political moment.
On a personal note, I want to underscore the centrality of Religion and the seamless presence of Jewish Studies and the Jewish Studies Program in the mix of this discussion about the Humanities and its future at Syracuse University.
I designed a student survey for the major in Modern Jewish Studies and the minor in Jewish Studies as part of the “portfolio review” at Syracuse University. What are the impediments that weigh against a student declaring a major or minor sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program? Are students interested in our classes and what do they take from them? Are students even aware that there is a major or minor offered by the Jewish Studies Program? Are they even aware that there is a Jewish Studies Program at Syracuse (most of our students sign up for our classes through larger departments like Religion or History)? I am attaching the survey below + a large pdf containing response from students enrolled in a large Introduction to Judaism and in an introduction to Great Jewish Writers.
The survey results indicate genuine interest on the part of many, perhaps even most of the students who enroll in our classes. Classes in Jewish Studies (cross listed between Jewish Studies and larger home departments) enjoy robust enrollments. Students are very interested in the content on offer. A great many of them express what I trust is genuine enthusiasm. I believe many students understand the qualitative distinction that differentiates our courses from the larger, anonymous professional programs of study. But attempts to attract majors and minors in the Jewish Studies Program (and across the Humanities) face harsh headwinds that are beyond the control of our faculty. These impediments are personal and structural.
[1] The Jewish Studies Program and major and minor are effectively invisible. Students (as well as faculty colleagues, administrators, and advising officers) don’t know the Jewish Studies Program, major, and minor even exist. Because they signed up for class through a larger departmental body, the great many of the students in our survey are finding out that there is a Jewish Studies Program for the first time from the instructors pitching it to them.
[2] Most of the Jewish students seem to like learning about “their religion.” Non-Jewish students like the material and are learning a lot. Students are actually interested in religion and in Jewish thought.
[3] Students might like our classes, but are not interested in pursuing the minor or major.
[4] Students do not see how a program in Jewish Studies fits into a larger career path. I would imagine this is true across the Humanities.
[5] Students have no time to consider a double major or minor in Jewish Studies. Onerous degree requirements in the larger programs lock their students in place, leaving them no time to explore other areas of possible interest. I imagine this is also true across the Humanities.
Major in Modern Jewish Studies or minor in Jewish Studies
The academic study of Jewish society and culture, texts and ideas, is a platform upon which to develop unique perspectives out onto the world in which we live. Courses explore literature, thought & culture, gender, politics & society, Israel & the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, history, Hebrew, the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, art, architecture, visual culture, Judaism, Bible, and textual tradition.
[1] A double major in Modern Jewish Studies or a Minor in Jewish Studies is based in critical skills and human intelligence essential for work across the professions (law, medicine, media and journalism, the arts, business and finance, government and politics, tech) and work in the Jewish community (federation work, the rabbinate, museums, social services, Jewish education, non-profit work, Israel advocacy, etc.).
[2] As part of a double major or a minor, Jewish Studies open out alternative points of view to larger programs of study and traditional majors such as in American Studies, Art History, Communications, English and Textual Studies, History, International Relations, Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Sociology, Visual and Performing Arts, Women and Gender Studies, or the Writing Program. Work in Jewish Studies makes more complex your study in other fields.
[3] Study and learning for its own sake, a major in Modern Jewish Studies or a Minor in Jewish Studies provides opportunities for students to explore universal human questions relating to culture, ethics, identity, and meaning. You don’t have to be Jewish and it doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe; we only want you to think and write, clearly and critically, about the things most important to you.
For more information, please feel free to contact:
Professor Zachary Braiterman (Jewish Studies Program, Director), zbraiter@syr.edu
At a moment when the country and its culture are fundamentally confused about race, religion, Jews, and the Middle East, Syracuse University is pausing the enrollment of new majors in the Jewish Studies Program along with majors in the Department of African American Studies, the Department of Religion, and the Program in Middle East Studies. Add to that Classics, European languages, and other programs across the Humanities.
Based on harsh budgetary pressures and the need to “reallocate resources,” the decision by SU to pause new enrollments to majors identified by the Administration as “third tier” and to do so with the possibility of ultimately closing some programs will cause real damage to the undergraduate experience at SU. It will make SU less attractive to students and their families, and is only generating confusion among students at SU.
The minor in Jewish Studies and the major in Modern Jewish Studies at Syracuse University take the Jewish experience in modern times as its signature focus. A student minor or major can build their coursework around a flexible, individually crafted course of study. Our popular courses explore American, European, Israeli and Yiddish literatures, Jewish thought and culture, Jewish history, Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Holocaust and antisemitism, as well as an introduction to Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, the classical Jewish textual tradition and Hebrew language.
Jewish Studies provides a critical and core discourse that contributes to the understanding social change and communal resilience, human value and personal meaning. It does so today at a moment of profound social and psychic disruption. Our classes, which typically generate repeat enrollments, contribute to the study of “culture, community and change,” a rubric SU now claims to be promote as a “pillar of distinctive excellence.”
We are all in this together. Programs such as Jewish studies, African American studies, Middle Eastern studies, Religion, and foreign languages complement and enhance other areas of study. We draw from an array of cultural perspectives – including perspectives from minority communities – that are typically overlooked in larger programs of study such as English, history, philosophy and political science. Our classes in the Jewish Studies Program attract robust enrollment from students with diverse backgrounds from across all colleges within SU, including professional schools. Majors and minors enjoy a personalized and intensive student experience with faculty and graduate student teaching assistants.
A decision to eliminate enrollment in the modern Jewish studies B.A., along with other impacted programs, would be nothing less than a body blow to the Jewish Studies Program at SU. The decision would:
[1] Form part of a larger assault on the Humanities writ large in the larger life of the modern universities are now dominated by STEM and professional schools and programs.
[2] Cut off potential avenues of growth for advanced undergraduate study, which will not easily grow back once eliminated.
[3] Send an unambiguous and negative signal to students, faculty, parents and the larger Jewish community, including parts of the Jewish donor community, that Jewish studies as well as other impacted areas of study simply don’t matter at SU.
[4] Cause reputational harm to SU as an institution of higher learning for serious humanistic research while undercutting the value of a Syracuse degree.
The impacted programs now under pause are instead being forced to bear the burden of large, systemic failures and mismanaged institutional and budgetary priorities that plague modern universities. Indeed, these cuts at a time of war, racial and religious polarization, festering antisemitism and a climate of authoritarianism across the globe are a symptom of severe disorder and social malfunction in university life and the culture at large.
When I was an undergraduate many decades ago, I was one of two majors in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst. I was privileged to engage intensively with wonderful professors who looked after me. I went on to pursue graduate work at Stanford and a rewarding academic career here at SU, which has been my home for 28 years.
Before the age of intellectual austerity, one could imagine the existence of small programs thriving in a greater university ecosystem. Course enrollments in the Jewish studies program, all of them cross-listed across the humanities, are evidence of student interest in the classes we offer. SU should be promoting diverse areas of study, not abandoning them in the face of negative headwinds affecting humanistic study across the entire modern university.
A great institution of higher education is only as strong as its smaller programs. Jewish Studies should be a vital component part of that vision of the university as a place that fosters diverse and vital knowledges.
The very real challenge addressed by the program review now underway at Syracuse University is how to grow the number of majors and minors in our impacted programs and across the humanities. I have every confidence that faculty in the Jewish studies program and other impacted programs want nothing more than to engage the larger university community regarding the future of these programs together. This requires serious work from colleagues in the impacted programs. But to date, the Administration has taken a sink or swim approach to the Humanities and to our impacted smaller programs. The Administration has offered no concrete help countering built-in structural impediments to enrolling new majors, impediments which are built into bureaucracies and curricula across the entire university.
Long recognized as a vital concern for Jewish community, the future of Jewish Studies is on the line at Syracuse University and across the country.
As director of the Jewish Studies Program, I am asking for support from the Jewish community. To this end, I especially invite students and their families, alumna and supporters to contact the chancellor, provost, and deans at Syracuse to engage them in the open spirit of contributing to what is a still fluid conversation. But more importantly, I invite students and their families to consider the value of the student experience in majors and minors across the Humanities and in small, intensely vital programs of study such as Jewish Studies. These provide critical complements to other areas of study and are themselves inherently interesting.
As one student told me, the professional colleges prepare students for jobs demanding critical and human intelligence whole failing, spectacularly, to train students in those very skills. A keen combination of human values and critical inquiry based on close reading and writing and communication are precisely crucial now at the very moment when artificial intelligence and other technological transformations take on a life of their own. Faceless technologies polarize the country and culture. Institutions of higher education such as SU should be doubling down on the Humanities and supporting our small, impacted programs, including Jewish Studies, as essential to the mission of the modern university in service to the common good.
As part of a “portfolio review,” Syracuse University is pausing the enrollment of new students in BA programs in Religion, Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies as well as foreign languages and other programs in the Humanities.
The onus is placed purely on faculty to come up with what are basically band-aid solution to the nation-wide crisis in majors in the Humanities. Rather than create mechanisms that encourage students to enroll in these impacted programs, the Administration is taking a sink-or-swim approach to the undergraduate curriculum. This at a time marked by massive confusion about things like religion and political life, Jews, and the Middle East, and the value of humanistic study.
The other day I ran into an Associate Dean on my way to class who has been involved in the portfolio review. I believe she is acting in good faith, even as the situation is probably helpless. We started chatting, I’m sure about the portfolio review. Completely at random, a very bright student approaches us and warmly introducing himself to me. Turns out he’s the son of an old friend from my days in Habonim and he knows my 21 year-old.
The Dean was, I think, very much aware of the interaction.
Here’s what I wrote to her:
Hi K.:
I wanted to reach out after what I thought was a funny encounter re: that student we ran into who recognized me and started chatting me up. He’s the son of a friend of mine who recognized me from a photo and by reputation. He just spent a year in Israel with a progressive Jewish youth movement. A first year at student. INTENDED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS major.
As he and I continued walking, I told him that given his interest in Israel and the Middle East and North Africa that he should consider a double major in MESP (Middle Eastern Studies Program). We’ll meet, I hope, and I’ll continue to push this with him..
The issue here is that ADVISING and DEGREE WORKS and especially COLLEAGUES in the larger departments should be recommending the smaller programs of study to students as complementary to their own programs of study. They should be actively seeding students across the colleges to programs like MESP, RELIGION, JEWISH STUDIES, etc.
A complex set of thoughts going after the NYC mayoral election with Mayor-Elect Mamdani winning some half of the city-wide vote. On one hand, Mamdani ran on an affordability platform, not Palestine and Israel, and there was a concerted and good faith effort to reassure Jewish New Yorkers that he will represent them (https://forward.com/news/780196/mamdani-nyc-mayor-election-jews/) On the other hand, the toxic politics of “Israel and Palestine” was always part of Mamdani’s coalition. The Mayor-Elect of NYC is a committed a/z candidate and supporter BDS. He has a history trafficking in a/s-a/z tropes centered on Israel that many see has having contributed to a climate pocked by implicit and explicit a/I, a/j, a/s bias and hostility (XXXXAstoria article).
I am happy for Mamdani’s supporters who are happy, especially Muslim New Yorkers who suffered so much bigotry throughout this campaign; it’s their turn to be part of a governing coalition and to shoulder the weight of that civic responsibility. I am relieved that Cuomo lost, even though I voted for him. I am relieved that the race is over, willing to wait and watch the emergent Mamdani Administration with an open mind, but with one eye open; worried about what happens next; hoping he steps back from button animus towards the Jewish state. I hope he comes to understand, but have no hope he will, that it is anti-Zionist venom that gins up what he himself calls “the scourge of anti-Semitism” in society today, even as it does nothing to address roots of conflict and secure human life and political dignity in Israel and Palestine.
I will take some of my own lead from Rabbi Jeremy Kalmonfsky at Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Ansche Chesed is an egalitarian-Conservative liberal-progressive-Zionist congregation. The congregation bespeaks unshakeable commitments to democracy and the State of Israel. No flags, not the American flag and not an Israeli flag flank the bimah –just two large menorahs. Neither he nor Rabbi Yael Hammerman joined 1000+ rabbis from across the country expressing opposition to Mamdani because of Israel. With their own redlines regarding anti-Zionism, other prominent NYC rabbis who didn’t sign the letter included Angela Buchdahl and Elliot Cosgrove ) :
In this letter to the congregation at Ansche Chesed, Kalmanofsky explains why he was not going to vote Mamdani, why he won’t tell his congregants or anyone else in the Jewish community how to vote, and how New York Jews might best respond to Mamdani in office.
Religion is a magnifying glass. In the synagogue before God, or the image of God, religion raises affect like love and fear to the nth degree. That includes political affect.
This is what Kalmanofsky wrote to his congregation before the election.
Dear Friends,
New York’s mayoral race has many Jews on pins and needles.
The Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani – whose anti-Zionism is among his core personal commitments – is very likely to become mayor of the second most Jewish city in the world, after Tel Aviv. More Jews live in the Big Tapuach than in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beer Sheva combined. Polls say he holds a double-digit lead over Andrew Cuomo, whose only path to victory would require the Republican, Curtis Sliwa, to drop out. Mamdani is almost certain to win.
Still, Jewish leaders are mobilizing on the slim hope. Some of my friends and colleagues have given passionate sermons, circulating virally, about the dangers Mamdani would pose to our community. As I write this, more than 1,000 rabbis of every denomination, including several AC members and dear friends, signed an open letter encouraging Jews to oppose him and favor candidates who “reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.”
I’m for those things too, needless to say. But I did not sign the letter. I speak for myself, not Rabbi Hammerman, but she didn’t sign either. In her D’var Torah tomorrow in the Sanctuary she will express her views on cultivating engagement, not estrangement, even in disagreement. In contrast, several AC members expressed disappointment and criticism that I have not spoken in the decisive way other rabbis have.
Because this is a weighty issue, I feel I owe it to our synagogue to reflect on it publicly. So in these next few paragraphs, I will explain:
–Why I myself will not vote for Zohran Mamdani.
–Why I think it is a misuse of my role to tell you how to vote.
–What I think would be more productive for Jewish citizens of this great city.
First, regarding my own vote: Mamdani’s policy ideas are several steps left of what I would prefer. I find some of his proposals dubious in theory and unrealistic in practice. For reasons that have nothing to do with Israel and Jews, Mamdani would not be my first choice.
But fine. In most circumstances, I would probably give a Democratic Socialist the benefit of the doubt and wait to be pleasantly surprised at whatever successes he might have. Yet here, for reasons that have a great deal to do with Israel and Jews, I choose not to vote for him.
I do not think Zohran Mamdani wishes harm upon Jews. I see no evidence that he would be hostile to our synagogues, schools, charities, museums, or businesses. Even amidst a very serious surge in antisemitic attacks, I see no evidence that he would slacken the protection the NYPD provides us. For that reason, I think rabbinic assertions that Mamdani poses a threat to Jewish safety are reckless hyperbole.
But the mayor-in-waiting definitely believes that the political expression of Jewish peoplehood, the State of Israel, should never have come into being and should no longer endure as a Jewish state. He is not alone, certainly not in his millennial generation. I know that some in our own community also believe that Israel, at best, has fatally lost its way, or, at worst, was an illegitimate colonial invasion from the outset.
But I think the opposite. I think Israel, for all its flaws, represents the liberation of Jews from centuries of vulnerability. It represents the ingathering of exiles – especially those who survived Tsars, Nazis, Soviets, and Ayatollahs – who created and are still creating modern Jewish culture in an ancestral homeland, reviving an ancient language. To me, Israel represents our people’s will to live, our commitment to Jews past and future, our mutual care, our infinite patience, perseverance, and hope, despite unspeakable suffering.
And the vast majority of American Jews agree with me. A Washington Post poll, earlier this month, reported that 76 percent of American Jews believe the existence of Israel is vital for the long-term future of the Jewish people. That’s most definitely what I think.
So here lies the crux of a very tough problem. I believe Zohran Mamdani is not an antisemite. But he is implacably opposed to the vision most of us hold of Jewish thriving. I find it difficult to believe that as mayor he would consistently support our community’s aspirations for itself, while at the same time regarding those very goals as – what he considers – genocide and oppression.
In an era when the word Zionist has become a curse among leftists worldwide, I find it easy to imagine conflicts between City Hall and Jewish citizens over our love and commitment to the country Mamdani considers illegitimate.
Here are a few hypotheticals: What would happen if his ideological comrades call on him to cancel the Salute to Israel parade, which they call Salute to Apartheid? An October 7th commemoration in Central Park? New York should not celebrate the beginning of a genocidal war. Mamdani’s claim that he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu in New York is probably, but not certainly, absurd. What if that threat extended beyond one prime minister to his successors, or to any minister representing that pariah country? Under Mamdani’s Education Department, which curricula or books would be rejected by public schools for “normalizing settler colonialism?” I find it easy to imagine that Mamdani’s City Hall would take a generally hostile, BDS approach to the national home of our people.
I do not agree with those who claim Jews would be unsafe in Mamdani’s New York. But I do think many of us – including me – would feel unwelcome. So I will not vote for Zohran Mamdani.
Second: I think it is a misuse of my role to tell you how to vote. I treasure America’s venerable suspicion about the toxic brew of religion and politics. Faith traditions should contribute to public life by speaking about the values behind political questions. But debates in the political sphere are almost always contestable, with reasonable people seeing things differently. Most problems are not all black or all white, with only a single decent answer. Most problems are hard – including this one – and everyone’s duty as a citizen is to engage them, consider different factors, and choose responsibly. I have expressed my views, but I do not think they are the only legitimate ones. Over 25 years, I hope I have proven that my doors and ears are open for talking over hard issues respectfully. If anyone wants to meet with me about this matter, you’re invited.
When religious leaders claim their faith commands favoring a given candidate over another, that typically diminishes people’s agency and responsibility as citizens in a democracy. New York Jews, do your job and make your own decisions. Some of you will disagree with me about Mamdani. You might think I am mistaken, and I might think you are. That does not make either of us bad Jews.
Having been in this job for 25 years, I know some of you out there are itching to object … But what about Hitler? If Hitler were on the ballot, would you endorse his opponent? First of all, yes, I would. Second, if Hitler were on the ballot, you wouldn’t need rabbinic guidance on what to do. And third, while I would prefer that someone besides Zohran Mamdani serve as Mayor, he is not Hitler, and this is not Berlin, 1933. Let’s keep our eyes open for warning signs of trouble, but let’s not frighten ourselves or lose our heads prematurely.
Moreover, looking around America, I grow increasingly distressed at the shearing off of liberal from conservative religious communities. Christians seem to have this problem worse than we do, at least so far. There are MAGA churches that brook no dissent and progressive ones that are no less rigid, each viewing the other as borderline wicked. I hope we Jews do not divide ourselves into ideological monocultures where heterodoxy and dissent are unwelcome. Republicans should be able to davven in liberal spaces. Progressives should be able to join Orthodox shuls. Anti-Zionist and Zionist Jews should do mitzvot together. The Torah commands lo titgodedu, traditionally interpreted to mean, don’t fragment yourselves into factions. I fear this happening to Jews. Frankly, I fear it more than I fear an anti-Zionist mayor.
Third, what would be more productive for Jewish citizens of this great city? Don’t condemn the new administration before anything has even happened yet! Instead, be good citizens. Show civic virtue and work together with our neighbors. Don’t shout. Talk together and connect. Don’t boycott. Do you like it when people boycott us? And especially, be sure to vote, with early voting beginning tomorrow. Don’t sit this one out, even if you don’t like your choices.
If and when Mamdani wins, what would be a better outcome pragmatically – isolation or cooperation? During the campaign, he has said at least some of the right things about building ties to Jewish communities, even promising to include Zionists in his administration. You might be skeptical about how seriously he means it. I am a little skeptical myself. But let’s remember, he is not running for president and is not a nominee for secretary of state. Israel-Palestine is not in his portfolio. He is going to have his youthful, inexperienced hands full with mayor stuff – affordable housing, public safety, and sanitation. It violates no one’s Zionist principles to work together on issues like those.
Is there a chance that well-meaning New York Jews can persuade him to moderate his anti-Israel views? Honestly, probably not. His father, Mahmood, is a leading theorist at Columbia on “settler colonialism,” and Zohran is steeped in a certain approach to the conflict. But respectful relationship building – being no more adversarial than necessary – could at least help Mamdani understand that Israel supporters have an ethical and sincere worldview that he might come to respect as something more than rapacious and racist.
Finally, I must object to one element in the Jewish outcry against Mamdani. Some of the rabbis condemning him have urged people to put their Jewish identification first when deciding how to vote. Essentially: Don’t worry about New York as a whole, is it good for the Jews? But being American Jews, New York Jews, must be integrated with being citizens in this republic, not an alternative to it. I already told you why I am not voting for the man. But I implore us to view this challenge not as an either/or. To treat Jewish commitments as something opposed to citizenship commitments would confirm that our enemies were right all along: That would mean that we really do not belong here and do not see ourselves at home in the gorgeous mosaic. That distortion of citizenship would betray American Jewish history to its core.
Shabbat Shalom, Jeremy
My own thoughts about Mamdani and the mayoral race and anti-Zionism in Democratic Party and liberal-progressive society have been bitter. But now, after the election, it’s time to begin to bracket them. Indeed, the model represented in the missive from Kalmanofsky creates room to breathe in the closed place of the synagogue. Instead of mirroring and magnifying our own worst fears about Mamdani and anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in society, Ansche Chesed models the virtue of open civic engagement.
Having said this, it would be remiss not to mention.
Mamdani’s own statements about Israel from just a few short years ago represent a rendition of what others have called the “socialism of fools.” Jews not joining Mamdani, who won just over 50% of the total vote in NYC, kept the Mayor-Elect from securing more of the votes required for a super-charged popular mandate.
Here are a number of items.
— A review with links to what Mamdani has said about Israel, BDS, 10/7, etc.
–Mamdani’s acknowledgment of Jewish trauma on 10/7 follows a formula: [1] A short and cursory expression of grief followed by a full bore condemnation of Israel, [3] A short expression supporting universal human rights and dignity. [His remarks on the commemoration of 9/11 follow the same formula]
–Excellent article on Mamdani and New York Jews that captures the ambivalence felt by many Jews, including Jewish supporters of Mamdani.
—Here and here, remarks by Mamdani at the DSA in 2023 trades in classical anti-Semitic tropes: “How much of your $$$ is going over there, and how much of your needs are unmet here… We need to connect the struggles against austerity with the struggle against the funding of Israeli Apartheid”
—Ditto: Mamdani says NYS Assembly is a bastion of Z. thought
—Article by Jacob Kornbluh, the best reporter in NYC covering Jews and Jewish community: This article is about Mamdani’s reach-out to Jewish voters.
— What Mamdani said by way of reaching out. “I hope they know that, whether or not they support or agree with me, I will always be a mayor who protects them and their communities. I don’t begrudge folks who are skeptical of me, especially with tens of millions of dollars having been spent against me with the intent to do just that, but I hope to prove that I am someone to build a relationship with, not one to fear”
—Another article by Kornbluh. This one is about some Brad Lander Jews voting Cuomo, and Mamdani Jews express misgivings.
For Mamdani, the question will be how much bandwidth to give Israel and Palestine as Mayor-Elect and Mayor of NYC. For the Jewish community, the issues at stake are: anti-Semitism and public safety, disruptive anti-Israel protests, including protests marked by bloodcurdling messaging, Mamdani’s non-participation in community events like the annual Israel Parade (I’m not a big fan and don’t attend personally, but I’m not Mayor of NYC). It is a fair case to make that anti-Zionism does nothing to advance Palestinian rights, that refusing the right of Jewish national self-determination and the incessant “Israel genocide Israel genocide” drumbeat gin up a climate of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish hate in society.
Mamdani is presumably not himself an anti-Semite, most reasonable people are going to contend. But we know that phenomena such as anti-Black racial animus or anti-Semitism is structural and systemic. What concerns many Jewish voters is Mamdani’s strong anti-Zionist orientation and alignment with binary movements such as the DSA and SJP that foment anti-Jewish animus and contributes to anti-Semitism in society. Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are, indeed, different and “distinct” phenomena. But they are not “separable.” Like many progressives, Mamdani, in all probability, does not understand or refuses to acknowledge how they overlap. His allies on the anti-Zionist Jewish left are only going to obfuscate this point. The overarching issue facing New York Jews is recognition, including recognition of the Jewish community that overwhelmingly supports the State of Israel, wants to see a fair and decent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and seeks to establish sound relations between Muslim and Jewish New Yorkers.
When David saw his servants talking in whispers, David understood that the child was dead; David asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” “Yes,” they replied.
Thereupon David rose from the ground; he bathed and anointed himself, and he changed his clothes. He went into the House of GOD and prostrated himself. Then he went home and asked for food, which they set before him, and he ate.
It seems that this will be the cover image for In the Image: Virtual Religion and Philosophical Talmud
Marcel Duchamp, To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour (1918) is an emblem of religious or spiritual looking.
Duchamp’s glass demands time and close attention, distorting realist perception in the creation of spectral effects.
“The title of this work, which Duchamp said he “intended to sound like an oculist’s prescription,” tells the viewer exactly how to look at it.”
“But peering through the convex lens embedded in the work’s glass “for almost an hour” would have a hallucinatory effect, the view being dwarfed, flipped, and otherwise distorted. Meanwhile, the viewer patiently following the title’s instruction is him- or herself put on display for anyone else walking by. Duchamp called To Be Looked At . . . his “small glass,” to distinguish it from his famous Large Glass of 1915–23. He made the work in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he had fled earlier in 1918 to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the United States during World War I. When he shipped it back to New York, the glass cracked in transit, producing an effect that delighted him.”
