At last year’s mayoral interfaith breakfast, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum came equipped with a literal message.
It was a sign that read, “Mr. Mayor: show mercy to our immigrant friends!” Kleinbaum, a prominent progressive leader who is senior rabbi emerita of the LGBTQ+ synagogue Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, held the sign above her head during Eric Adams’ remarks, silently protesting a mayor who she felt was letting down the immigrant community following Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A year later, at Zohran Mamdani’s first interfaith breakfast on Friday, Kleinbaum returned — but without a sign.
There was no need for a demonstration, Kleinbaum said in an interview, because she didn’t have to put pressure on Mamdani.
“I’m willing to work with any mayor who’s mayor of our city — and I’m thrilled that Mayor Mamdani’s values align with my religious conviction that immigrants are an essential part of our city,” she said.
Mamdani’s interfaith breakfast brought more than 300 religious leaders to the New York Public Library’s flagship building for scrambled eggs and coffee. A few of them spoke or led prayers. The focus was in large part on protecting immigrants amid ICE’s growing presence in the country, a presence that Mamdani said is antithetical to the biblical concept of “welcoming the stranger.”
The morning also embodied the shifting landscape under Mamdani’s mayorship, in which progressive Jews and Jewish organizations are playing a more central role in New York City politics. Those groups range in viewpoint from liberal Zionist to the anti-Zionist ones that Mamdani protested alongside during his time as a State Assembly member.
“This particular breakfast felt very authentic,” said Rabbi Emily Cohen, spiritual leader of the Reconstructionist West End Synagogue, in an interview. “From the very get-go, the director of the Public Library was able to speak out about ICE and the importance of reading. In past years, even that speech has felt very limited in its scope.”
This year’s sponsors included left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the liberal-leaning Nexus Project and the New York Jewish Agenda, the progressive organization whose director, Phylisa Wisdom, was recently tapped to lead Mamdani’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
Major Jewish organizations including UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and the Anti-Defamation League did not sponsor, after having done so each of the last three years.
Jewish Voice for Peace, the anti-Zionist organization, was represented at the breakfast for the first time since the annual tradition was started by Mike Bloomberg. Rabbi Andy Kahn, director of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, and Jamie Beran, who heads the progressive group Bend the Arc, were also in attendance.
Meanwhile, Cohen delivered remarks in which she called JFREJ her “political home” and recounted being arrested at a recent ICE protest — a risk that she felt compelled to take “on a spiritual level.”
“Religion is often characterized as a home for the right, but I am continually inspired by the religious left,” said Cohen, who was part of the “Rabbis for Zohran” campaign video.
Mamdani framed his speech around the idea of “welcoming the stranger,” and said that people can “rely on our faith to offer an embrace of one another.” He offered an example of how the Hebrew Bible calls for protecting vulnerable neighbors.
“I think of Exodus 23:9, the words of the Torah, ‘Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,’” Mamdani said. “Few have stood so steadfast alongside the persecuted as Jewish New Yorkers.”
Zohran Mamdani speaks during his first Interfaith Breakfast, an annual tradition hosted by the mayor. (Joseph Strauss)
Mamdani named examples of Jewish allyship in Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, a pair of civil rights activists who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan; and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched alongside Martin Luther King. He also named Yip Harburg, who wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and, Mamdani said, “uplifted Americans waiting on bread lines during the Great Depression.”
The mayor had begun his remarks by shouting out the handful of elected officials in attendance including Brad Hoylman Sigal, the Jewish Manhattan borough president.
The loudest ovations were reserved for the politicians occupying the most progressive lane: Brad Lander, the former city comptroller who is Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally; and Shahana Hanif, a City Council member in Brooklyn whose participation in pro-Palestinian protests has drawn backlash from some constituents.
Mamdani also acknowledged the absence of Arthur Schneier, a 95-year-old Orthodox rabbi who was supposed to lead a prayer but was absent due to an illness, and offered his “hopes for a quick recovery.”
Schneier is the senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue, which was the site of a pro-Palestinian protest in November that sparked efforts to ban protests outside houses of worship, and intensified fears of growing antisemitism under an anti-Zionist mayor. A Mamdani spokesperson responded by saying that he “discouraged” the language used at the protest, and that the Nefesh b’Nefesh event was a misuse of a “sacred space.” Schneier’s son, Rabbi Marc Schneier, said on Thursday that he would boycott the breakfast because of Mamdani’s anti-Zionism.
Satmar Hasidic rabbis Moishe Indig, who endorsed Mamdani during the election, and Sam Stern were at the event.
Jewish representation at the breakfast was not limited to progressive or outwardly pro-Mamdani groups.
Rabbis Joseph Potasnik and Diana Gerson from the New York Board of Rabbis were seated at the mayor’s table, despite not sponsoring the event. JCRC’s vice president for the Center for Shared Society, Matt Abrams Gerber, was also present. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, who spoke out against Mamdani during the election, attended, as did Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition chairman Josh Mehlman and Boro Park Jewish Community Council CEO Avi Greenstein.
“At a time when antisemitism is rising precipitously, it’s important to show up with the interfaith community,” Potasnik said after the event. “We can’t fight antisemitism alone.”
Immigrant protection was the issue at the forefront of the breakfast, rather than other hot-button issues like combating forms of hate like antisemitism and Islamophobia. Mamdani announced an executive order that would push back against ICE, and pamphlets instructing immigrants on their rights were distributed in 10 languages, including Yiddish. It was a contrast from last year’s breakfast, where the mayor’s only acknowledgement of immigrants’ safety came when he read Kleinbaum’s sign.
“I think that each administration has its own culture and its own vibe,” said Cohen. “The vibe of the previous administration was not in line with the values and priorities of my beliefs — and the current administration is.”
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