Early in the humid afternoon on Wednesday, New York State Assembly member Harvey Epstein stood at a table on the corner of East 7th Street and Avenue B, handing out free vegan hot dogs. A day earlier, he was confirmed the winner of the primary election to represent Manhattan’s District 2 in City Council,

Wearing a navy T-shirt proclaiming “Plant Powered Dad,” Epstein, along with representatives and volunteers from animal rights activist groups PETA and NYCLASS, stood outside his district assembly office, calling out to passersby, “Would you like a free vegan hot dog?”

“During Thanksgiving we did a tofu turkey giveaway, and during Christmas we did a vegan roast,” Epstein told the New York Jewish Week. “And it made sense for Fourth of July to do vegan hot dogs.”

Hot dogs and Independence Day go together like peanut butter and jelly, of course. But there was a symbolism to the giveaway that was hard to ignore: To secure his spot on the ballot this fall, Epstein had just beaten four other candidates — including, notably, disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor.

The 58-year-old Epstein, who is Jewish and ran on a platform centered on housing and affordability, was endorsed by the Working Families Party, winning the final round of ranked-choice voting with 56.7% of the vote. In November, he will run against Republican Jason Murillo, but as the Democratic candidate in deep-blue New York City, Epstein is all but certain to win.

Weiner, meanwhile — who was the subject of awkward profiles during his unlikely comeback bid — only made it through the first round, with 10.3% of the votes. (Weiner’s ex-wife, Huma Abedin, a former Hillary Clinton aide, has also garnered a lot of media attention of late, for a very different reason: In June she married Jewish philanthropist Alex Soros, the son of billionaire and prolific political donor George Soros.)

Asked whether the hot dog giveaway had anything to do with Weiner, Epstein said no.

“It is kind of funny though,” Epstein said. “We never even thought about it till this morning, when someone brought it to our attention.”

A note in a special newsletter from The City Wednesday morning drew the connection between his opponent’s name and the hot dogs: “He trounced Anthony Weiner, and now he’s giving out vegan wieners!”

Epstein told the New York Jewish Week that he has been a vegan since his student days at Ithaca College, where he served as Hillel president. Before that, he grew up in a Conservative, kosher observant home in Wantagh, Long Island, where he attended Levittown schools.

“So I guess I’ve been kosher my whole life,” he said.

Epstein and his wife, Anita, are members of the East End Temple on 17th Street, where their two children, Leila and Joshua, had their bar and bat mitzvahs. Epstein has lived in the East Village for about 30 years, where the family also resides with their 11-year-old rescue dog, Homer.

“I call myself an agnostic Jew,” said Epstein, who in February 2024 was among five Jewish elected officials in New York who signed an open letter condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel while also condemning “the actions of the current Israeli government.”

Epstein’s campaign for City Council caught the attention of the wider American public when it was spoofed in an episode of “Saturday Night Live” last November. In the spot, comedian John Mulaney, wearing a bald cap, portrays Epstein, and repeatedly insists that he isn’t the former movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein, nor is he the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, nor is he some abominable combination of the two.

“Listen, is my name ideal? Of course not,” Mulaney’s Epstein says in the sketch. “I share names with two of the most notorious perverts of all time. You think I don’t know that? But thankfully, I’m a different guy.”

Epstein, a regular “SNL” viewer, told The New York Times in November that he woke up the following morning to hundreds of text messages telling him to watch the episode.

“So I watched it and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s me,’” the real Epstein told The New York Times. “It was, like, ridiculously funny. I couldn’t stop laughing.”

But he didn’t stop there. He took the opportunity to drum up support for survivors of sexual assault. “All joking aside,” Epstein shared on X, “I hope my newfound followers will consider donating to @RAINN, who do extremely valuable work supporting survivors.”

A former lawyer and tenant organizer who has served in the state legislature since 2018, Epstein attributes his victory in his city council campaign to old-fashioned hard work.

“I worked hard and I won,” Epstein said. “People voted for me more than they voted for other people. And I have a long history in this community. People know that and respect that.”

On Wednesday, as a small crowd gathered on the otherwise quiet street, locals seemed to enjoy the chance to meet with their political leadership, if only for a minute.

“It’s been great,” Epstein said. “People have been happy and joyful and taking food. It’s a little slower than other events we’ve had, just because a lot of people are away around the holidays, but it’s been fun.”

“I think that it’s very nice that [the] candidate is coming up and talks to people and shares his ideas, and how he’s looking to make the city better,” said Taisiia, a young woman living in the East Village who declined to share her last name. “That’s great to see someone we’re voting for in person to just — it’s always good to know [who] the person you’re voting for is, you know, see the smile and maybe eyes.”

One couple, a 20-something-year-old young man and woman walking hand-in-hand, passed the table and asked what the hot dogs were for. Volunteers at the table told them they were with Harvey Epstein’s office.

“I voted for Harvey Epstein!” the man said.

“Is that you?” the man asked, turning to the victor. “Oh my God, I voted for you!”

“You get two hot dogs!” Epstein joked.

Incendiary rapper Ye, who was formerly known as Kanye West, has had his visa cancelled in Australia over a recent song release titled “Heil Hitler.”

The announcement came Wednesday after Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said officials had reviewed his visa status following the controversial song’s release in May.

Ye is currently married to Bianca Censori, an Australian architect, and had been “coming to Australia for a long time,” Burke told national broadcaster ABC on Wednesday. “He’s got family here and he’s made a lot of offensive comments that my officials looked at again.”

“It wasn’t a visa for the purpose of concerts. It was a lower level and the officials still looked at the law and said you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia,” Burke said of the visa cancellation.

“We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry,” Burke continued.

The announcement comes as Australia faces an increase in antisemitic incidents. In Australia last year, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, there were 1,713 antisemitic incidents, compared to 1,200 in 2023.

Last December, a synagogue in suburban Melbourne, Australia was set ablaze and two synagogues in Sydney were defaced with swastikas and other antisemitic language in January.

Following the release of the song — which includes the chorus line “All my n****s Nazis, n***a, heil Hitler” — Ye appeared to repent for his previous antisemitism.

In May, the morning after the deadly shooting of two Israeli embassy workers in Washington D.C., the rapper took to X to say he was “done with antisemitism.”

Ye’s Australian visa cancellation also follows the cancellation of the U.S. visas for Bob Vylan, a British punk band that led thousands of concert-goers at the Glastonbury music festival in chanting “Death, death to the IDF” last weekend.

Far-right pundit Candace Owens also faced visa cancellations from Australia and New Zealand last fall, with Australia rejecting her request for a visa over remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.

A Conservative synagogue in Minnesota has become the first in its denomination to allow its clergy to participate in — but not officiate — weddings of Jews who marry outside their faith.

Rabbis and cantors at Adath Jeshurun Congregation, a large synagogue in suburban Minneapolis, can now offer blessings, teachings and music during wedding ceremonies for intermarrying couples, as long as the ceremonies do not feature rituals from religions other than Judaism.

Such weddings would take place outside the synagogue and be officiated by someone who is not clergy, such as a friend, relative or judge.

Announced Monday, the policy change was supported by the congregation’s board and signed by the congregation’s two rabbis and two cantors, including Joanna Dulkin, who is the immediate past president of the 600-member Cantors Assembly, the professional association for Conservative cantors.

The goal is to make the congregation of some 1,100 households more welcoming and inclusive while recognizing that intermarriage is a common reality among congregants and American Jews at large, according to Adath Jeshurun’s senior rabbi, Aaron Weininger.

“We see Conservative Judaism as offering nuance at a time when there are so many binaries, and this gives us a path forward to make sure everyone is seen and heard and welcomed into our community,” Weininger said.

About 42% of married American Jews have a non-Jewish spouse, with the intermarriage rate reaching about 60% for those who have wed since 2010, according to a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center.

The move by Adath Jeshurun’s leadership marks a deliberate departure from the stricter standards long upheld by the Conservative movement and its rabbinical association, known as the Rabbinical Assembly.

Weininger said the decision was reached through a public process with multiple listening sessions and after regular communication with the leadership of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the denomination’s umbrella organization.

“We hope we can play a role in being a living lab for the movement and working for change from within the system as a USCJ congregation,” he said.

It’s not the first time Adath Jeshurun has put itself at the forefront of denominational change. Many decades ago, it was among the first Conservative congregations to allow girls to have a bat mitzvah, an initiation ritual previously reserved for boys. In 2023, when Weininger assumed his current position, he became the first openly gay person appointed to the position of senior rabbi at a large Conservative synagogue.

Adath Jeshurun’s announcement comes as the Conservative movement weighs how to move beyond a history of treating intermarriage as a threat to Judaism, without forsaking its traditional grounding in Jewish law.

In a report released last year, the Rabbinical Assembly reaffirmed its ban on clergy officiating at weddings of intermarrying couples but called on members to be more welcoming toward mixed families. Since then, a working group with representatives from several Conservative movement bodies has been studying the issue and is expected to release its findings later this year.

In response to Adath Jeshurun’s announcement, Conservative leaders said they are awaiting the guidance that will come from the working group.

“When that work is complete in the coming months, it will inform our professional and lay leadership as they work with congregations like Adath Jeshurun to determine the appropriate path forward, aligned with the movement’s policies and values,” Andy Schaer, president of USCJ, and Rabbi Jay Kornsgold, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said in a statement.

Their statement was conciliatory in tone, acknowledging the significance of the issue Adath Jeshurun is seeking to address.

“We fully recognize that disapproval has too often discouraged intermarried couples and their families from being part of our synagogue communities and building relationships with our clergy,” it read. “Today, we are, instead, focused on fostering a positive vision of Conservative/Masorti Judaism that encourages commitment, creativity, and inclusivity.”

There are a variety of approaches to intermarriage across Jewish denominations. The Reform and Reconstructionist movements permit it, while Orthodox Judaism strictly prohibits it — leaving Conservative Judaism to chart a middle path.

But as the movement enters the next phase of its debate on intermarriage, it will do so without the leader USCJ hired in 2020 to focus on the issue. As part of a budget reallocation, USCJ recently eliminated the position of director of intermarriage engagement and inclusion, leading to the layoff of Keren McGinity. A part-time racial justice and inclusion specialist position was also cut.

McGinity is not currently giving interviews. In a Facebook post, she noted that Adath Jeshurun’s announcement coincided with her final day.

“May the Adath clergy and community go from strength to even greater strength,” she wrote. “I can’t think of a post I’d rather read on my last day serving as Director of Intermarriage Engagement and Inclusion.”

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, the CEO of USCJ, said in a letter to synagogue leaders in May that his organization remains committed to intermarriage engagement, albeit under a “different staff structure.”

The Conservative movement used to forbid its rabbis from even attending intermarriage ceremonies. That ban was lifted in 2018, after 40 years, by a vote of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which sets the movement’s interpretation of Jewish law.

By now, it is an open secret that some of the 1,600 rabbis belonging to the RA officiate at weddings of intermarrying couples. The RA has expelled some rabbis for flouting the ban, and others have left over the issue.

The policy change at Adath Jeshurun falls short of permitting officiation. Weininger said the congregation did not believe it could justify that move.

“The part of the wedding ceremony known as kiddushin that says, ‘you are betrothed to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel,’ does not apply to a couple in which one partner has not affirmed that covenant,” he said.

He also said the goal was to invite “as much buy-in as possible” and to encourage change throughout the movement.

Still, he acknowledges that both he and Adath Jeshurun are going against the rules and could face repercussions.

“My sense is that USCJ wants to hear different points of view, and I’m hopeful that our process — which has involved as many voices as possible — will be welcomed,” he said. “We hope to work for change within the system. It’s ultimately their decision how to respond.”

The acting president of Columbia University reportedly recommended the ouster of a fellow trustee who is Jewish and separately endorsed the appointment of an “Arab on our board,” according to texts obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

In a letter Tuesday addressed to Claire Shipman, which was first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, committee chairs Reps. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Elise Stefanik of New York, both Republicans, lambasted Shipman over the correspondences.

In the committee letter, the representatives accuse Shipman of expressing “distrust and dislike” for Shoshana Shendelman, a Jewish member of Columbia’s Board of Trustees who frequently condemned campus antisemitism.

In January 2024, before Shipman became acting president and was then a trustee, Shipman wrote, “I just don’t think she should be on the board,” referring to Shendelman, the committee said.

In another message from April 2024 referred to in the committee’s letter, Wanda Greene, the vice chair of the board of trustees, asked Shipman whether she believed that Shendelman was “a mole? A fox in the henhouse?”

Shipman then allegedly agreed, stating, “I do,” to which Greene added, “I am tired of her,” and Shipman agreed, writing, “so, so tired.”

The exchanges about Shendelman, the committee letter stated, “raise the question of why you appeared to be in favor of removing one of the board’s most outspoken Jewish advocates at a time when Columbia students were facing a shocking level of fear and hostility.”

Shendelman, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and Columbia alumna, was one of the most vocal trustees in demanding Columbia crack down on pro-Palestinian protests and address charges of antisemitism. In an oped last month for Fox News, Shendelman said she was targeted by unnamed “media voices” for her advocacy around those issues. “After voicing my concerns regarding antisemitism on campus, I became a target of certain media voices determined to erase decades of my work, service, and scholarship with a few calculated, malevolent strokes of a pen,” she wrote.

The committee also shared text messages they say indicate that Shipman had allegedly been in favor of adding an “Arab” person to the university’s board.

The letter quotes a message from January 2024, quoting Shipman as saying, “we need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board.”

In the committee’s letter, they wrote that the remark about needing an Arab board member “raises troubling questions regarding Columbia’s priorities just months after the October 7th attack, which was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”

“Were Columbia to … appoint someone to the board specifically because of their national origin, it would implicate TItle VI concerns,” the letter continued.

The letter comes as Columbia enters its fourth month of negotiations with the Trump administration after the federal government cancelled $400 million in grants to the school over campus antisemitism in March.

Later that month, Shipman replaced then-president Katrina Armstrong as the leader of the school amid escalating pressure from the Trump administration. In May, Shipman authorized the mass arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters on Columbia’s campus, underscoring the school’s recent policy shifts towards protesters as a result of the federal government’s demands.

The committee letter also called out Shipman for a message sent on Oct. 30, 2023 to then-university president Minouche Shafik, saying Shipman appeared to downplay the presence of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus.

“People are really frustrated and scared about antisemitism on our campus and they feel somehow betrayed by it. Which is not necessarily a rational feeling but it’s deep and it is quite threatening,” the message from Shipman read.

Commenting on this message, the committee letter said, “Your description — that people feel ‘somehow’ betrayed and that this is ‘not necessarily a rational feeling,’ but that it is ‘threatening’ — is perplexing, considering the violence and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students already occurring on Columbia’s campus at the time.”

In a statement to JTA, Columbia claimed the messages had been taken out of context.

“These communications were provided to the Committee in the fall of 2024 and reflect communications from more than a year ago. They are now being published out of context and reflect a particularly difficult moment in time for the University when leaders across Columbia were intensely focused on addressing significant challenges,” the statement read.

“This work is ongoing, and to be clear: Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism and working with the federal government on this very serious issue, including our ongoing discussions to reach an agreement with the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Acting President Claire Shipman has been vocally and visibly committed to eradicating antisemitism on campus;  the work underway at the university to create a safe and welcoming environment for all community members makes that plain,” the statement continued.

Eric S. Goldstein, who has served as CEO of UJA-Federation of New York for 11 years, will step down next summer as the head of North America’s largest and most influential Jewish federation. 

In a statement Tuesday announcing his departure, Goldstein reflected on a tenure marked by several communal crises, bracketed by two wars in Gaza and including the COVID pandemic. 

“I remember well my plans for that first summer of 2014. I expected to learn the ropes and ease into the job. History, tragically, had other plans. On June 30, 2014, the bodies of three yeshiva boys kidnapped by Hamas were discovered — and a 50-day war followed. My first public role was speaking at a heartbreaking memorial service,” wrote Goldstein.

“I learned by doing, witnessing in real time the power of UJA to respond in crisis. I also saw how, in moments like these, our community — so often divided — would come together, finding strength and solace in one another,” the statement continued.

Goldstein also reflected on the way that his role has transformed since his arrival in 2014, making note of the way antisemitism has “metastasized into a fast-growing cancer here in America.”

“In 2014, UJA did not have a single line item in its budget for confronting domestic antisemitism or Jewish communal security,” wrote Goldstein. “Today, UJA is leading the charge in responding to this growing threat in New York — including through the creation in 2019 of the Community Security Initiative, now a vital 20+ person team responsible for helping secure over 3,400 Jewish institutions in New York and beyond.”

At the time of his hire, Goldstein, a financial litigation lawyer, was a mold-breaking choice to head the federation, having been a top lay leader at UJA-Federation and several Jewish institutions, and not a “Jewish professional” like many of his predecessors.

In 2020, five months into the pandemic, as UJA-Federation anticipated declining donations and was forced to cut 12% of its staff, Goldstein forwent his salary, listed at $546,000 at the time. 

In the fiscal year 2024, the federation raised $445.4 million, including $40.4 million in planned giving and endowments. That year it disbursed $263.5 million in grants to beneficiaries that included social welfare programs, Hillels, community centers, Jewish day schools, Israel trips and Israel-based projects.  (70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Jewish Week, is among the many beneficiaries.)

Since Hamas’ attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, it has allocated nearly $198 million to date in emergency funds for ravaged communities in Israel’s south and north and other responses to the war.

“This past year alone, UJA distributed $336 million for grants and programs, including approximately $134 million for Israel,” Linda Mirels, president of the federation, and Marc Rowan, chair of its board, said in their statement accompanying the announcement. 

“Eric’s tenure has been transformational,” they said. “His steady judgment guided UJA through some of the most challenging periods in recent history, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, and Israel’s just-concluded 12-day war with Iran.”

Goldstein plans to step down in June 2026, according to the announcement, which did not mention a successor.

New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand apologized to NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani Monday night over comments she made on WNYC last Thursday in which she falsely claimed Mamdani had made “references to global jihad.”

The apology, which was first reported by Politico, comes after Gillibrand had previously backed away from the comments she made on WNYC last Friday, telling Rolling Stone that she “misspoke.”

In the Thursday interview, Gillibrand responded to a caller who had asked her about holding Mamdani accountable for “glorifying” Hamas.

In response, Gillibrand said, “The caller is exactly the New York constituents that I’ve spoken to that are alarmed. They are alarmed by past public statements. They are alarmed by past positions, particularly references to global jihad.”

Mamdani has declined to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” but has not appeared to have made references to jihad.

Among those criticizing Gillibrand for her characterization of Mamdani was New York Gov.Kathy Hochul when asked by a reporter to “comment on the racism [Mamdani] is already facing, including from New York’s own Kirsten Gillibrand.”

“No one should be subjected to any comments that slur their ethnicity, their religious beliefs, and we condemn that anywhere it rears its head in the state of New York,” replied Hochul. If elected, Mamdani would be New York’s first Muslim mayor.

MORE: What Zohran Mamdani has actually said about Jews and Israel

Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a left-wing activist group, urgied followers to call the senator and demand she apologize for her rhetoric.

In a readout of the call between Gillibrand and Mamdani obtained by Politico, Gillibrand’s team said the two had “discussed the need to bring down the temperature around the issue” of the war between Israel and Hamas, and that she “regretted not separating her own views from the radio show caller’s more clearly.”

“Gillibrand said she believes Mr. Mamdani is sincere when he says he wants to protect all New Yorkers and combat antisemitism,” the readout continued. “She said the GOP attacks on him are outrageous and unacceptable.”

Gillibrand’s team said the pair agreed to meet in person in New York City in the near future to discuss other issues including affordability and public safety, according to Politico.

Mamdani’s pro-Palestinain activism is proving a challenge to the Democratic establishment, especially in New York, where support for Israel was considered a bedrock of outreach in a city with more than 1 million Jews. Following Mamdani’s surprising victory in the mayoral primary earlier this month, Gillibrand was quick to demand that he clarify some of his statements on Israel and the Palestinians, while two Jewish colleagues, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerry Nadler, offered more praise to the candidate.

The Trump administration has called on the United Nations to remove Francesca Albanese, the U.N. rapporteur on Palestinian rights, alleging “virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism,” according to a letter obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.

The letter, dated June 20 and addressed to U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, also alleges that Albanese claims to be an “international lawyer” but is not licensed to practice law.

Albanese, an Italian national, regularly accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and has said that the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas must be put in a” context of decades of oppression imposed on the Palestinians.”

The administration’s warning comes on the heels of a new report by Albanese titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide.”

In the report, Albanese recommends corporate entities “cease all business activities” linked with “human rights violations and international crimes against the Palestinian people,” and also calls on them to pay reparations to the Palestinian people.

“It shows how corporations have fueled and legitimised the destruction of Palestine. Genocide, it would seem, is profitable. This cannot continue, accountability must follow,” wrote Albanese in a post on X announcing the report Monday.

In the administration’’s letter, acting U.S. representative to the U.N. Dorothy Shea accused Albanese of waging “an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy.”

The World Jewish Congress also condemned Albanese’s new report, accusing her of promoting a “deeply biased narrative.”

“Ms. Albanese’s report is yet another example of her repeated misuse of her mandate to advance a political agenda rather than to uphold the universal principles of human rights,” said the WJC’s Executive Vice President Maram Stern in a statement.

Pro-Israel groups like U.N. Watch and NGO Monitor have regularly accused Albanese of anti-Israel and even antisemitic bias. In 2022, Albanese caught fire from top U.S. and Israeli diplomats who called out comments she made in 2014 in which she suggested that Europe was under the sway of the “Jewish lobby” and “guilt about the Holocaust.”

In February 2024, Albanese also received furious backlash when she said that victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel “were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under President Biden, posted on X at the time that Albanese is “unfit for her role. The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”

WASHINGTON — Zohran Mamdani turbocharged his upset victory in the New York mayoral Democratic primary by seemingly spending time with everyone in the city’s five boroughs.

Now pro-Israel Jewish progressives want some face time with the 33-year-old State Assembly member, who backs boycotting Israel and downplays Jewish concerns over the term “globalize the intifada,” now that he is one step closer to leading the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

In interviews, Jewish Democratic activists said Mamdani’s victory last month is not the national disaster for the century-long Jewish-Democratic alignment that Republicans are making it out to be — but it’s not good either. 

“If he’s going to be the mayor of New York, which is the largest Jewish population in any city in the world,” Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a group that campaigns for Democrats in the Jewish community, “he needs to understand that his defense of the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ isn’t just concerning, it’s unacceptable.”

The prospect of candidates, including for federal office, emulating Mamdani’s Israel-critical postures is unsettling, according to pro-Israel insiders.

“Someone like Mamdani winning in the biggest city in America definitely has national implications,” said one major donor to Democrats who asked not to be identified in order to speak frankly.

A staffer for a Congressional Democrat said Mamdani’s victory complicated efforts by Democrats to raise the alarm in Jewish circles and beyond about the rise in harsh criticism of Israel among progressive politicians.

“There has been concern with amongst the established Jewish community and pro-Israel community with the left flank of the Democratic Party in terms of Israel for a while, and more mainstream, center-left Democrats have been trying to reassure them that there’s still a place for them in the party, and this just makes it the task that much more difficult,” said the staffer, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly. “I don’t think it’s like the end of the world, but it makes that task harder.”

The pro-Israel left tolerates and even indulges in a certain amount of criticism of Israel, especially of the unpopular prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing extremists in his coalition. But Mamdani’s positions and rhetoric — especially his defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which critics of the phrase says endorses deadly attacks on Jews —  particularly irks Jewish progressives.

“It’s a consensus across the Democratic Party that something like ‘globalizing the intifada’ is deeply offensive, and it would behoove Mamdani to actually acknowledge that,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street, a Jewish Middle East policy group that emphasizes a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is often critical of the Israeli government..

“Those of us who lived through an Intifada don’t want to see it coming to a street near us, right?,” said Ben-Ami, who lived in Israel during the first 1987-1993 Intifada. “That’s not an attractive option.”

Mamdani has Jewish defenders, chief among them New York Comptroller Brad Lander, who also ran in the primary and who cross-endorsed with Mamdani. Lander describes himself as a Zionist who can work with Mamdani on confronting New York’s affordability crisis and against polarization.

“We are not going to let anyone divide Muslim New Yorkers and Jewish New Yorkers,” Lander said on primary night. “Our safety, our hopes and our freedoms are bound up together, don’t get it twisted.”

Some pro-Israel donors to the Democratic Party say their worries about Mamdani’s victory are  mitigated to a degree by its circumstances. Mamdani faced a deeply flawed rival in scandal-plagued former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the democratic socialism he embraces barely resonates outside of New York City and a handful of other metropolitan centers.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, who founded the Israel Project media outreach group at the launch of the Second Intifada, and who has donated to multiple Democratic candidates over the years, said the party was in dire need of candidates more palatable than Cuomo.

“We need to do a much better job in nurturing young talent that is really smart and helping them understand issues and convincing them to run,” she said of pro-Israel Democrats, noting how Emily’s List cultivated feminist candidates at the local and state level.  “It is very hard to get good people to run, because it’s such a toxic environment, and the sacrifice is just so huge.”

Ben-Ami urged Democrats to emulate Mamdani’s campaign style, which included savvy social media videos of the candidate meeting with New Yorkers of all stripes in every borough of the city.  

“It’s very direct to camera, switching the narrative, at times, doing a lot more interviewing and listening to people on the street, making that your message, rather than 30-second ads that are highly produced and repeated over and over again,” he said. “It’s just a much more native and intuitive way of communicating with anybody under 40.”

Mamdani’s victory, at least for now, is more the exception than the rule, say Jewish Democrats, who pointed to primary victories over members of the “Squad,” the small faction among Democrats that is hypercritical of Israel.

“We’ve seen the moderates or center left folks win in Democratic primaries, like last year in Michigan, like this year in New Jersey, the extreme candidates who ran on Israel lost,” said Ira Forman, a longtime director of the National Jewish Democratic Committee, the JDCA’s predecessor. 

He referred to a primary victory last year by incumbent Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar in Michigan, and Mikie Sherrill’s recent win in the New Jersey gubernatorial primary, where her second-place rival was deeply critical of Israel. Incumbents Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri, both harsh critics of Israel, also went down to defeat to pro-Israel moderates in primaries last year.

National pro-Israel groups are staying out of the general election, according to spokespeople for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, J Street, the JDCA and Democratic Majoriity for Israel. 

That’s in part because major pro-Israel political donors in New York are considering how best to keep Mamdani from winning the general election in November — chief among them hedge funder Bill Ackman.

“I don’t think national people are going to be putting money into it,” said the pro-Israel Democratic donor who asked not to be identified. “There’s enough New York money to go around.”

Soifer said JDCA is seeking a meeting with Mamdani. “It’s a moral obligation that he ensure that all New Yorkers feel safe and secure and considering how many Jews are in New York, he’s going to have to change the way he speaks about this issue,” she said, referring to Israel and particularly his history with the phrase “globalize the intifada.”

Days before his primary win on June 24, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada” in a podcast interview with The Bulwark, calling it “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.” He later said he wouldn’t use such language.

On Sunday in a post-primary victory interview on “Meet the Press,” Mamdani refused three times to condemn the phrase — but instead of defending it, he couched his refusal in a reluctance to “police” language, and said he “heard” the fears of Jewish New Yorkers who revile the phrase.

Mamdani did not make the Palestinian issue front and center while campaigning — indeed, when asked about it he often pivoted to his favored issue, affordability in the country’s most expensive city. 

And yet, unlike a number of other progressive Democrats who, once elected, have emerged in recent years on the national stage as strident Israel critics, Mamdani did not try to obscure or downplay his identification with the Palestinian cause during his campaign. He stood by past statements backing the boycott Israel movement and his pledge to arrest Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should the Israeli prime minister, accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, visit the city while he is mayor.

He has also sought to address outrage arising out of his statement a day after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, massacring close to 1,200 people.

His Oct. 8 statement mourned the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives, although Israel had barely launched its retaliation, and lacerated Israeli leaders for declaring war, without mentioning the Hamas attack that launched the war — or even naming Hamas.

He has moved away from that one-sidedness since then. In the weeks before the primary election and in an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on election eve, Mamdani called Hamas’ attack a “war crime.”

The Democratic pro-Israel donor said Mamdani’s shifts indicate a possible willingness to pivot, comparing him to Michigan’s Thanedar, who was sharply critical of Israel when he was first elected in 2022, but who shifted to a pro-Israel posture after the Oct. 7 attacks. An effort was underway, the donor said, to get Democratic leaders to weigh in. 

Those appeals appeared to pay off on Sunday when New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, demanded clarity from Mamdani on “globalize the intifada” in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“Globalizing the intifada, by way of example, is not an acceptable phrasing,” Jeffries said. “He’s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward.”

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Jewish Democrat who welcomed Mamdani’s victory without specifically calling out his views on Israel, told Jewish Insider, 

“Sen. Schumer condemns the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and believes it should not be used because it has such dangerous implications.” 

While calling out rhetoric they think is dangerous and unhelpful, few of the mainstream liberal supporters of Israel, unlike a number of Republcans, are willing to call Mamdani antisemitic. In New York, however, some local pols weren’t so reticent. “When someone spends years relentlessly targeting the world’s only Jewish state through legislation, boycotts and protests — while remaining silent on the abuses of regimes like Iran, China or Russia — it’s not principled criticism, it’s antisemitism, plain and simple,” Sam Berger, a Democratic Jewish state lawmaker from Queens, said in a statement on the eve of the primary. 

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, who worked in communications for a number of prominent New York Democrats — including former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who endorsed Mamdani — said it was critical to lower the temperature by sticking to the facts.  

“The piece that feels most important to name is the urgency of leaders recognizing how rhetoric like ’globalize the intifada’ is now directly and increasingly fueling violence against Jews,” she said. “That’s different in some of the conversations that are happening that are suggesting Mamdani himself has said certain things, or otherwise twisting the reality.”

Soifer of the JDCA said it was incumbent on Jewish Democrats to also make clear that the attacks on Mamdani’s faith as a Muslim were also intolerable.

“It’s important to note that we’re no strangers to hate, and we see some hate being directed at him as well,” she said.

Though he was elected to represent Astoria, Queens in New York’s State Assembly, Zohran Mamdani — who last week pulled off a stunning upset in New York City’s mayoral primary — has called the Palestinian cause “central to my identity,” both in and out of politics.

Mamdani consistently and proudly associates with the pro-Palestinian movement in high-profile settings across New York City. Take Saturday night, for instance, when he took the stage with Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian protest leader who was detained by the Trump administration, at comedian Ramy Youssef’s show at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side.

So it’s no surprise that as Mamdani aims to become mayor of New York — the city with the largest Jewish population in the world — that Jewish New Yorkers are closely scrutinizing what he has said about Jews, Israel and the conflict in the Middle East.

Below is a round-up of what Mamdani has said on a range of Israel and Jewish-related topics in a variety of interviews that have made headlines.

Israel’s right to exist

During the long mayoral primary campaign, Mamdani repeatedly said that Israel has a right to exist. But he usually qualifies that statement by adding that Israel is flouting its responsibilities under international law, based on its treatment of Palestinians.

He has also been asked if Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. As he stated at a town hall in May with the UJA-Federation of New York, co-moderated by the New York Jewish Week’s Lisa Keys: It should exist “with equal rights for all.”

He later said on a local Fox channel’s morning show: “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else.”

The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel

As he said at the UJA-Federation town hall, he supports the BDS movement, which lobbies for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel. Pro-Israel groups have fought a decades-long battle to marginalize the movement, which its critics say seeks the eradication of Israel as a Jewish state.

“My support for BDS is consistent with the core of my politics, which is nonviolence. And I think that it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law,” he said.

Academic boycott of Israeli universities

While a student at Bowdoin College — where he co-founded the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter — Mamdani agreed with the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli academic institutions in 2014.

“Israeli universities are both actively and passively complicit in the crimes of both the Israeli military and the Israeli government in all its settler-colonial forms,” Mamdani wrote in an op-ed in the school’s student newspaper, published in 2014, the year he graduated. “Israeli universities give priority admission to soldiers, discriminate against Palestinian students, and have developed remote-controlled bulldozers for the Israeli Army’s home demolitions.”

He added that the boycott “is decidedly not aimed at individual persons.”

“In other words, a professor from the University of Tel Aviv can still present research at an ASA conference, provided that he or she does so as an individual scholar and not expressly as a representative of Israeli academic institutions or of the Israeli government,” Mamdani wrote.

Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza

Mamdani’s first statement about the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which he issued the day after, expressed mourning for “the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours.”

He added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “declaration of war” will “undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering…The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”

Since then, Mamdani has consistently referred to Israel’s retaliatory actions in Gaza as a “genocide” — a word he had used to describe previous Israeli military conflicts, long before Oct. 7. (More on that below.) He has also said that the United States, through its support of Israel, is “subsidizing a genocide.” Israel denies it is carrying out a genocide.

At a rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023, some local members of the Democratic Socialists of America — of which Mamdani is a member — celebrated Hamas, who killed close to 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more on Oct. 7. Mamdani condemned the rally on Oct. 10, telling Politico: “My support for Palestinian liberation should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life. I condemn the killing of civilians and rhetoric at a rally seeking to make light of such deaths.”

Attacks on Jews in Washington, D.C. and Colorado

Mamdani also condemned the shooting outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in May that killed two staffers working at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their families—as well as all those who must contend with the appalling rise in antisemitic violence,” he wrote in a statement on X.

He also condemned the firebombing of an event in Boulder for Israeli hostages, and he again commented on it on Monday, after the death of a woman injured in the incident — including in his statement a phrase often used by Jews after the death of a loved one.

“I am heartbroken by the news from Colorado where Karen Diamond, a victim of the vicious attack earlier this month, has passed away,” he wrote on X. “May Karen’s memory be a blessing and a reminder that we must constantly work to eradicate hatred and violence.”

Tackling antisemitism

On the campaign trail, Mamdani has stated that he wants to work to combat hate crimes across New York City, including those on Jews.

Just before the primary, he appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” alongside Brad Lander, a Jewish progressive who finished third in the ranked-choice primary; the two had cross-endorsed each other in the race. In the appearance, Mamdani claimed that the city is experiencing a “crisis of antisemitism” and said that he would like to create a Department of Community Safety that would focus on anti-hate programming.

“Antisemitism is not simply something that we should talk about — it’s something that we have to tackle,” he said on the show. “We have to make clear there’s no room for it in this city, in this country.”

In the UJA-Federation town hall, Mamdani also said that he would be “proud” to appoint a senior adviser to tackle antisemitism in New York.

The phrase “Globalize the intifada”

Mamdani has in multiple interviews declined to condemn the term “globalize the intifada,” a phrase used by many in the pro-Palestinian movement on college campuses and beyond. The word “intifada” directly translates to “shaking off,” but most Jews associate it with two violent Palestinian uprisings, which led to several terrorist attacks across Israel from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.

When asked about the phrase earlier this month, Mamdani said “the role of the mayor is not to police language.” New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand strongly rebuked Mamdani on the topic. (Notably, Jewish pro-Israel politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerry Nadler have both praised Mamdani since his primary win.)

On Sunday, he clarified that the term is “not language that I use,” but still declined to disavow it.

“The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights,” Mamdani said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Mamdani used similar language in an interview with The Bulwark posted on June 17. That led Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to write in a post on X, “Globalize the Intifada is an explicit call for violence. Globalize the Intifada celebrates and glorifies savagery and terror.”

The Holocaust 

While Mamdani has commemorated the Holocaust on social media, he took heat for declining to sign onto a resolution memorializing the genocide in the state assembly in May.

“He absolutely supports the Holocaust Memorial Day resolution,” campaign spokesperson Andrew Epstein said at the time. “He had to narrow down the capacity” during a busy campaign season, Epstein added.

Mamdani said in the UJA-Federation town hall that would like to see more Holocaust education in New York City schools.

Hasan Piker interview

In April, Mamdani sat for a three-hour interview with popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” compared Israelis to the Ku Klux Klan, and defended Hamas’ attack on the Nova music festival, in which the Palestinian militants killed hundreds of Israelis and committed widespread sexual assault. On one of his shows, Piker told off a listener who condemned the massacre, saying “Bloodthirsty violent pig dog, suck my d***.”

A number of progressive politicians, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California, have also appeared with Piker. When asked about Piker, Mamdani said, “I am willing to speak to each and every person about this campaign.”

Uncivilized.media interview

This week, a video of Mamdani speaking in Queens in 2023 went viral, thanks in part to Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, who criticized Mamdani for eating food with his hands in the video. “If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World,” Gill wrote on X on Sunday.

Similar videos attacking Mamdani led one Jewish group, the Nexus Project, to object that many of Mamdani’s critics are “trafficking in Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia, and distorting our broader political discourse.”

In the video, Mamdani sheds more light on his views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The son of two India-born parents — filmmaker Mira Nair and and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani — the candidate spent his early years in Uganda and South Africa before migrating to the U.S. at the age of 7.

“Specifically growing up in South Africa post-apartheid, it felt as if one of the most natural things to wear around my body was a keffiyeh,” he says, referencing the scarf that Palestinians have long worn and which has since become a symbol of resistance to Israel.

In the interview, Mamdani calls discussing Palestinian issues “entirely taboo” in U.S. politics and criticizes PEPs — politicians who he says are “progressive except for Palestine.”

He also says that he believes the U.S. has put Palestinian lives “in jeopardy” for “decades.”

Arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

“As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said to former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in December. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law.”

Earlier this month, he said the same thing at B’nai Jeshurun, a large synagogue in Manhattan.

“My answer is the same whether we are speaking about Vladimir Putin or Netanyahu,” he said. “I think that this should be a city that is in compliance with international law.”

The International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu — along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif — in November, accusing him of war crimes. Given that the United States is not a party to the ICC, it would be highly unlikely that the mayor of New York would be able to arrest Netanyahu.

The Holy Land Five

Before his political career, Mamdani released rap songs under the monikers Young Cardamom and, later, Mr. Cardamom.

In one 2017 song, “Salam,” he praised the “Holy Land Five” — the heads of a former Islamic charity organization founded in the U.S. who were convicted of aiding Hamas. In 2001, the U.S. government designated the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a terrorist organization and seized its assets; some have argued that the trial was based on “hearsay” evidence.

“My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up,” Mamdani raps in the track.

The “Not On Our Dime!” act

The Holy Land Five story concerned foreign funding of players in the Middle East conflict. Mamdani may have drawn a lesson from the case: He is the lead sponsor of the “Not On Our Dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act,” which he proposed in the New York State Assembly in May 2023. Its stated goal is to “prohibit not-for-profit corporations from engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.”

Sixty-six lawmakers, a majority of the Democratic state caucus, signed onto a letter condemning the proposal. “Its purpose is to attack Jewish organizations that have wide ranging missions from feeding the poor to providing emergency medical care for victims of terrorism to clothing orphans,” the letter read.

As Politico reported, Mamdani highlighted the act in campaign pamphlets during the primary campaign.

Minority Leader Chuck Shumer and several other Senate Democrats condemned the pro-Palestinian slogan “globalize the intifada” in response to a controversy surrounding NY mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s interpretation of the phrase.

In statements to Jewish Insider, Sens. Schumer, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Jacky Rosen of Nevada offered statements saying “Globalize the intifada” is a call to violence or, in Fetterman’s case, “deeply troubling.”

A spokesperson for Schumer, who had previously offered brief praise for Mamdani, condemned the phrase when asked about Mamdani’s statements that the phrase is “grounded in a belief in universal human rights.”

“Sen. Schumer condemns the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and believes it should not be used because it has such dangerous implications. As Senator Schumer said after the death of Karen Diamond, the attack in Boulder continues to serve as a grave reminder of the deadly consequences of the rise in antisemitism,” a spokesperson for Schumer told Jewish Insider, referencing the 82-year-old victim of the firebombing attack at a Boulder, Colorado demonstration for Israeli hostages who died from her wounds.

The spokesman said Schumer planned to meet with Mamdani, who on Tuesday was declared the winner of the Democratic primary and as a result is the heavy favorite in November’s general election.

The recent focus on “Globalize the intifada” came after Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel, declined to condemn the phrase. In an interview with The Bulwark, he said he believed the phrase spoke to “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” and said “intifada” was similar in meaning to the word “uprising” used to describe the Jewish revolt against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto.

On Sunday, Mamdani again refused to condemn the phrase, although he told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” that “that’s not language that I use.”

“The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights,” continued Mamdani.

In his statement, Blumenthal stipulated that he was not familiar with Mamdani’s stance.

“I don’t know what [Mamdani’s] position is on it, but I certainly think that the call to spread the intifada is the kind of incitement that can lead to extremist violence,” said Blumenthal.

Rosen referenced the two violent intifadas, one beginning in 1987 and the other in 2000, when Palestinian suicide bombers unleashed attacks in Israel and rioters clashed with Israeli security. In total, over 1,100 Israelis and more than 6,000 Palestinians died during the intifadas.

“At a time when antisemitism is rising at alarming rates in the U.S., leaders of both parties have an obligation to stand up, speak clearly, and unequivocally condemn hatred and bigotry in every form,” Rosen said in her statement.

“The intifadas were periods marked by unspeakable violence and terror against innocent Israelis, and it should not be a difficult decision for anyone to condemn the antisemitic call to globalize these violent attacks. Our words matter — and in moments like this, silence is not an option,” she continued.

“I’m not a member of the Jewish community or a NYC voter. Personally, I would never use or defend this deeply troubling phrase,” Fetterman said.

Last week, New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called on Mamdani to denounce the phrase. New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres called the slogan “deeply offensive” and said that “every elected official, without exception, should condemn it.” during an interview on CNN Monday.