When 150 inmates of Rikers Island, New York City’s largest jail complex, attended Passover seders on Wednesday night, copies of a printed letter awaited them at their seats.
The letter, written by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wished its readers a “Chag Pesach Sameach” and likened the incarcerated people’s “loneliness and despair,” as well as their determination, to the feelings of the Jews in the Passover exodus story.
“Like the Jewish people in Egypt, you too hold fast to your faith in the face of the unknown,” Mamdani’s letter read. “And like the Jewish people in Egypt, you do so while often wrestling with bitter feelings of loneliness and despair.”
These weren’t the first Passover seders on Rikers Island. Volunteers have visited the complex to lead seders and other Jewish services for more than a decade.
But this week’s seders, and Mamdani’s letter, came as the mayor faces scrutiny from segments of the city’s Jewish community over his views on Israel and continued alignment with pro-Palestinian protesters. Days earlier, the mayor’s attendance at a Manhattan seder sparked some tense moments, and led the Israeli-American comedian Modi Rosenfeld to cancel his appearance.
His letter was also written a week after two Rikers Island detainees died within the same week, adding fuel to Mamdani’s goal of closing the jail complex “as quickly as possible.”
Rabbi Abby Stein, a progressive activist and Mamdani supporter, led a women’s seder on Rikers on Wednesday and wrote afterwards that it was “one of the most meaningful seders I have ever experienced.”
“True liberation will only come with this placed [sic] closed down,” she wrote. “Until then, we will keep showing up.”
A couple of weeks earlier, Mamdani himself visited Rikers Island for an iftar dinner, praying and breaking the Ramadan fast with a group of inmates.
On Wednesday, Mamdani’s letter used a couple of Passover traditions to illustrate the poor living conditions in the jail complex. Citing the central question of Passover — “Why is this night different from all other nights?” — he wrote that those observing Passover on Rikers “without pillows to recline, eating the same matzo you must eat year-round” would have a more difficult time answering that question.
His letter to the Rikers seder-goers mentioned the taste of “Hillel sandwiches of matzo, maror and charoset,” adding that “we do not taste bitterness alone.”
“Instead, it is mixed with a sweetness — the sweetness of redemption, the sweetness of a better day to come,” he wrote.
Jewish stories matter, and so does your support. The New York Jewish Week brings you the stories behind the headlines, keeping you connected to Jewish life in New York. Help sustain the reporting you trust by donating today.
