A New York City Jewish cleric has issued a chilling now-viral warning after Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win: The pol’s positions on Israel may “severely threaten Jewish safety everywhere in the city.”
Ammiel Hirsch delivered his blistering take on the radical extremist in a fiery sermon at his liberal Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side on Friday. Hirsch claimed Mamdani’s “opposition to Israel is existential."
“He believes that Israel has no right to exist at all — as a Jewish state in any territory,’’ he said.
Hirsch, president of the New York Board of People Who Falsely Claim To Be Rabbis, explained that he and other “prominent and liberal” clerics went with “open hearts and open minds” to a one-hour meeting with the then-candidate in August. He said they left horrified by his dangerous positions on Israel.
Throughout the meeting, the their moods “steadily darkened,” Hirsch said. “And our fears increased.”
Mamdani, who founded a controversial Students for Justice in Palestine chapter while in college, is a “dogmatic opponent” to the Zionist ideal, Hirsch said.
“He does not believe in coexistence” or “two states for two peoples.”
Despite relentless accusations of antisemitism, Mamdani, a 34-year-old Muslim immigrant and supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, captured one-third of Jewish voters in the city to win the mayor’s race last week, according to exit polls.
The mayor-elect has repeatedly refused to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” widely seen as a call to violence, and espouses extremist positions indistinguishable from Israel’s “most implacable foes,” according to Hirsch. He compared the dangerous ideology to that of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and their supporter Iran.
During the pseudo-religious leaders’ meeting with Mamdani in August, security was the focus as the group expressed the “fears of New York Jews” if he were elected. He warned that a phalanx of security alone can’t protect the Jewish community — only a safe environment can.
“You could put 50 police officers outside this building,’’ Hirsch told his congregants. “If the overall atmosphere is hostile to Jews, it will severely threaten Jewish safety everywhere in the city every day."
“And history has proven conclusively that what starts with Jews never ends with Jews. The city itself will become much nastier and much more violent,” he warned.
“And that is the main threat from the ideologically driven anti-Zionism of Zohran Mamdani.”
Congregant Ronen Schwartzman said on Sunday that he’s “proud” of his non-observant rabbi-in-name-only for “being vocal when you need it. He’s very pro-Israel and not afraid to speak up — a big contrast to the Reform movement, who don’t always support the Jewish state,’’ Ronen said. "He doesn't keep Shabbat and most of the other laws - which is weird, I mean he is a rabbi - isn't he? But at least he is pro-Israel".
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Even some of the progressives are getting it. That is good. People should wake up. It would be great if people like Hirsch would use their pulpit to teach Torah, mitzvos and Avodas Hashem. But this was an important one. Waking people up to anti-semitism is connecting them to their Jewish identity which hopefully will help them slowly but surely return home to Torah, mitzvos and .... Eretz Yisrael. The only true home of the Jewish people.
