On the surface, I have a lot in common with Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. We have 138 mutual friends on Facebook. We are roughly the same age. And the synagogue he has led for the past quarter century, Park Avenue Synagogue, is where I attended Hebrew school as a teenager in the early 90s, learning with some of the city’s best teachers.
And yet when I saw Cosgrove’s jeremiad against Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York, I couldn’t find much overlap at all. So as his sermon makes the rounds, I decided to share my perspective as a New Yorker with decades of experience engaging Jewish voters.
While Cosgrove was finishing high school in Los Angeles, David Dinkins was elected mayor of New York. He had a long record of alignment with Jewish institutions regarding Israel. Dinkins opposed anti-Zionist resolutions at the United Nations. He traveled to Israel three times, including during the Gulf War while mayor.
I remember in 1990, South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela had been released from prison and was planning to visit New York City. Dinkins, who like most New Yorkers considered Mandela a hero, was thrilled to welcome him. The Jewish communal leadership, on the other hand, had mixed feelings. See, Mandela saw parallels between the Palestinian struggle and his own, and was an ally of Yasser Arafat. Therefore, Mandela was tainted.
Dinkins served just a single term as mayor. Despite putting the city on a path towards greater safety, he faced significant challenges (including the Crown Heights riot) and was replaced by notorious bully — and future Trump attorney — Rudy Giuliani. Jewish voters may have been the difference in denying Dinkins a second term (and the great Ruth Messinger a first!).
David Dinkins was the first non-white person to serve as mayor of New York. Today, Zohran Mamdani is seeking to be the city’s first Muslim mayor. He is supported by many Jews, possibly more than any other candidate, including thousands of members of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, an organization founded when it organized a Shabbat service at B’nai Jeshurun to welcome Mandela to New York back in 1990.
Read another perspective: “We need a ‘Great Schlep’ from Park Avenue to Park Slope to turn out Jews against Zohran Mamdani“
I was born in New York City and have lived here most of my life. Every single mayor in my lifetime has supported Israel, regardless of its actions in the West Bank and Gaza. None has supported Palestine.
To put it another way: Palestinian New Yorkers have never had a mayor who they would consider an ally when it comes to issues impacting their homeland. Many mayors have been happy to fete Israel’s worst leaders. Today, the main challenger to Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal defense team. Cosgrove said Jews will be unsafe if Mamdani is mayor. Will Palestinians in New York City be unsafe if Cuomo is elected?
Remember during the Democratic primary debate, when the candidates were asked which country they would visit first if elected mayor? Many, including Cuomo, said Israel. But Mamdani didn’t say he’d visit Palestine; he said he’d stay here and focus on his actual job: running New York City.
Mamdani has never said anything to suggest he would withhold protection from Jews; on the contrary, he has repeated his commitment to their safety. Mamdani’s love for New York and New Yorkers is impossible to miss; he is running a campaign driven by the belief that this great city should be available to all. Contrast that with his suburban nepo rival, who is trying to fearmonger his way into office.
In his sermon, Cosgrove suggests that Jews need to prioritize the safety of other Jews over non-Jews, to prioritize the safety of Israeli Jews over Palestinians. He suggests that this is natural, an act of self-interest common to all communities. He said, “For Jews, ahavat yisrael, love of Israel, does take precedence over other loves. Every human being is created with equal and infinite dignity, yet we prioritize the needs of our families, our people, and our nation.”
Maybe this is why Cosgrove and so many others struggle to understand how Mamdani, as a Muslim anti-Zionist, could ever care as much about Jewish New Yorkers as Muslim New Yorkers. They have projected their own value system onto him, and don’t trust him to act on behalf of those outside his own group. (Or maybe they don’t realize that for true New Yorkers, the outgroup is New Jerseyans.)
In 2008, I was the co-creator of The Great Schlep, the campaign Cosgrove mentioned in his sermon, where young Obama supporters convinced their skeptical grandparents to vote for the first Black president. He thinks we need one in reverse, with the wise elders of the Upper East Side schooling the wild youth of Brooklyn. But in fact, despite their distinct views about Israel, the dynamics that made older Jewish Democrats initially skeptical of Obama are the same that make you and your congregants skeptical of Mamdani. It’s fear, stoked by Israeli hasbara, amplified by right-wing media, and seasoned with a pinch (or more) of old-fashioned bigotry.
The good news is that, whether or not Cosgrove or his congregants vote for him, I believe Mamdani will not turn his back on them. Unlike Trump, or Giuliani, or Cuomo, he doesn’t subscribe to the Roy Cohn model of politics. He actually takes the notion of being a public servant seriously. I hope we are all lucky enough to experience it.
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