It’s so easy to hate Jews nowadays, you don’t even need an excuse for expressing your vitriol.
The ascension of Zohran Mamdani, his guaranteed position on the ballot for New York City mayor, does not, contrary to common belief, represent a surge in the popularity of hating Jews. What it does, rather, is concretize what New York Jews, specifically and American Jewry, more generally, already felt in their bones, in their “kishkes” as my “Bubee,” would say.
Mamdani’s success in the NYC Democratic primary illustrates that Jew hatred is now an established reality. Present-day Jew hatred is not a spike on the status quo — it is the status quo.
Understanding this distinction is crucial. Within the United States, there now exists a significant portion of the population that feels comfortable in their hatred of Jews. This is a fact that was inconceivable even a decade ago.
And Zohran Mamdani is the poster child of this movement.
Ten years ago it was socially unacceptable to announce that you hated Jews. A decade ago, it was inconceivable that anyone — let alone our colleagues, classmates, neighbors — would embrace the murderers of Jews.
And yet, today, people like Mamdani avidly embrace Hamas and their raping, their butchering, their dismembering, their burning of children while still alive and their kidnapping of innocent people. Not any and all people — just Jewish people.
People like Mamdani support the terrorists who murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped, tortured and murdered 251 more.
There are still 49 people dead and alive that Hamas has kept hostage for more than 630 days. Some are still alive. Most of the kidnapped still in captivity are dead.
People like Mamdani support the terrorists who are holding dead bodies captive. Why? As leverage. For what? Time to make new plans to kill and kidnap more Jews, more Israelis.
Even when promised a cease-fire, Hamas still refused to release all the hostages. The entire situation is confounding; it is beyond understanding.
No one who voted for Mamdani was fooled. Every single voter knew the Mamdani platform, knew and agreed with his position on Jews, on Israel and on Hamas.
Yet they voted for him.
Now the real challenge must be tackled. Not how we arrived at this sickening situation. But how do we find a way out of this tailspin?
On NBC’s Meet the Press, on the Sunday following his success in the primary, Zohran Mamdani was given a platform. Even booking him on this program defines just how mainstream he and his platform have become.
The Democratic Socialists of America claim 80,000 paid members. They claim to be represented in all 50 states. I believe them.
This hatred of Jews is more mainstream than we would like to admit.
He was asked to condemn his hateful platform and the term “Global Intifada” not once, not twice, but three times. Each time, he responded with a smart retort: That is “not language I use” or “policing language” is more like what Trump does.
Rest assured that had he been asked to condemn anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-Muslim, anti -Palestinian, even anti-Hamas language as hateful, unproductive, unacceptable and illustrative of fundamental problems in a society that tolerates such hatred, the Democratic Party’s candidate for mayor of NYC would have had no problem and minced no words. He would not have found the need to skirt the issue.
What Mamdani did not say, could not say — says it all. It’s OK to spout your hate about Jews but not about any other group.
Once upon a time, hatred of Jews was veiled and hidden. Jew hatred emerged, on a one-by-one basis after someone’s inhibitions were dropped — most often due to too much booze, or when haters thought there were no Jews around to hear their views.
Well into an evening event a few decades ago, at a faculty party at a major Ivy League university, a senior faculty member treated me to a very colorful barrage of what he thought about Jews — especially those who wore kippot.
I was flummoxed. He certainly knew I was Jewish. I was wearing a kippa. What he didn’t know was that the scotch had unlocked his true feelings.
Even notable leaders on the left of the political spectrum have been bewildered not so much by Mamdani’s rise but by his refusal to walk back his embrace of Hamas and Global Intifada.
J Street founder and President Jeremy Ben-Ami is a public leader and Jewish critic of Israeli policy. He is a fervent supporter of the two-state solution.
And Ben-Ami said: “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. … Those of us who lived through an Intifada don’t want to see it coming to a street near us, right?”
What Ben-Ami is suggesting is that if this is a reflection of the real Zohran Mamdani, then, to quote him: “That’s not an attractive option.”
Jew hatred must not be normalized. The non-Jewish world must, unlike Mamdani, condemn this hatred as all hatreds. As for the NYC mayoral election, even those who conspire with the now most famous Jew hater of our day should pay attention to his other policies.
Mamdani’s views and his politics are not just bad for Jews; they are bad for New Yorkers and bad for all Americans.
Micah Halpern is a political and foreign affairs commentator. He founded “The Micah Report” and hosts “Thinking Out Loud with Micah Halpern,” a weekly TV program, and “My Chopp,” a daily radio spot. Follow him on Twitter @MicahHalpern. Read Micah Halpern’s Reports — More Here.
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