After a controversial campaign, Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of New York. This election marks the success of a new generation of activists within the Democratic Party, who are pushing strong economic and social demands and seeking to organize direct opposition to the Trump administration. But it also reflects a shift in the Democrats’ relationship with Israel—Mamdani has always taken a resolutely anti-Zionist stance—and makes this issue central to the American political debate. Donald Trump was quick to react with his usual finesse calling New York Jews who voted for Mamdani “stupid”. This week, Sébastien Lévi examines the questions raised by this election in the largest Jewish city in the United States, their vote, and the generational divides it reveals. How do American Jews feel about this shift in the Democratic Party, which has long been their political home but whose current developments continue to cause concern?
After Denis Charbit recalled the context of Rabin’s assassination last week and questioned its impossible commemoration, Ilan Greilsammer analyzes the question of his political legacy. Thirty years after Rabin’s assassination, what remains of the peace camp? What conclusions can be drawn about Rabin’s goals, now that the Spartan right wing seems to have become the majority and has stalled the prospect of peace between Israel and Palestine? And how does the war in Gaza factor into this assessment? Greilsammer offers an informed, albeit concerned, response to all these questions, looking ahead to the decisive elections of 2026.
In contrast to Sébastien Lévi’s text, we are republishing Jean-Claude Milner’s analysis from last March on the changing relationship between the United States and Israel. In it, he predicted that Israel would come under American control and that American Judaism would become WASP-ified. In light of Lévi’s observation that American Jews are distancing themselves from Zionism, the lucidity of this diagnosis seems compelling.
