Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City, making him the first openly anti-Zionist mayor of the metropolis, goes far beyond the boundaries of municipal politics. This success, driven by progressive youth and a significant portion of American Jews, reveals the depth of generational and ideological divisions within American Judaism. Between growing disaffection with Israel, rising antisemitism, and the reshaping of the Democratic Party, Mamdani’s victory acts as a brutal revelation of an American Jewish world in the midst of an identity crisis.
Zohran Mamdani has just been elected Mayor of New York. Unknown a year ago, this socialist owes his victory to his undeniable talent for mobilizing and uniting those around him, especially younger people. He focused his campaign and his success on the exorbitant cost of living in New York, but also on issues such as police brutality and racism. His avowed anti-Zionism, which was highlighted by his opponents in an attempt to weaken him politically (without success) rather than promoted by him, was also part of his campaign. The victory of an openly anti-Zionist candidate in the largest Jewish city in the United States is a major symbol for relations between the largest diaspora and the State of Israel, and raises questions about the future of liberal and democratic Zionism in the diaspora.
If this election stems from many factors, an interesting point to note is the generational shift among American Jews, particularly regarding their attachment to Israel.
American Jews’ attachment to Israel: a contrast between generations
According to 2021 figures from the Pew Research Center, 60% of American Jews say they feel emotionally attached to Israel, but this figure is 48% among 18-29 year olds, compared to 67% among those over 60. According to the same study, Israel is an important part of their Jewish identity for 82% of American Jews, but here again there is a clear generational gap: the figure is 71% for 18-29 year olds but 89% for those over 65.
Forty percent of American Jews believe that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, and this figure rises to 50% for those aged 18-34. It is easy to imagine that for young non-Orthodox American Jews, this figure is closer to 60%. A large proportion are therefore very critical of war in general, largely blaming the scale of Israel’s response. In other words, while the majority of American Jews remain Zionist and attached to Israel, this attachment is less pronounced among younger people, and many of these Jews have been shaken by Israel’s continued war in Gaza.
The Israeli government is partly to blame for this disaffection, even before the war in Gaza. For years, under the influence of Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews, many American Jews have been openly despised, with their Jewishness sometimes even denied. One example among many is the denial of access to the Western Wall to the Women of the Wall, a group of Jewish women who wish to pray and wear the tallit. It is also telling that female rabbis who support Mamdani have been repeatedly highlighted in his election campaign, as they have been regularly scorned by the rabbinical establishment in Israel.
Israel’s political and diplomatic evolution, notably with the accelerated development of settlements in the West Bank, has distanced it from American Jews who support Palestinian rights and a political solution to the conflict. This distancing worsened with the 2023 judicial reform, which sought to profoundly transform the democratic nature of Israel. Respect for democracy and the rule of law is a fundamental value for American Jews and Democrats in general, and Israel’s illiberal drift has contributed to alienating them.
Some young American Jews, already feeling a certain detachment from Israel and repelled by the country’s illiberal evolution and its handling of the conflict with the Palestinians, took part in these campus protests.
Finally, the increasingly overt overtures made by the Minister of Diaspora Affairs and the Minister for Combating Antisemitism to the European far right, including the most radical elements such as Germany’s AfD and England’s Tommy Robinson, have deeply alienated the most liberal Jews around the world, particularly in the United States.
The war in Gaza is obviously the key factor that has accelerated the change in attitudes toward Israel among American Jews and the American population more broadly.
The turning point of the Gaza war
Many pro-Palestinian demonstrations have taken place in the United States over the past two years, particularly on college campuses. While some were motivated by radical anti-Zionism and even outright antisemitism, others were explained by the diplomatic, political, and military support given to Israel by the United States, first under Biden and then under Trump.
In many ways, Israel’s war against Hamas in response to October 7 was also an American war, which explains, at least in part, why it is of much greater interest to Americans than Sudan or the Uyghurs. Antisemitism and the obsession with blaming Jews through Israel played a significant role, but reducing the emotions of Americans, especially younger ones, to this explanatory factor is simplistic. The slogan “No Jews, no news” is therefore accurate, but only partially so…
Some young American Jews, already feeling a certain detachment from Israel and repelled by the country’s illiberal evolution and its handling of the conflict with the Palestinians, took part in these campus protests. The psychological explanation of self-hatred has often been used, but it is also partial and does not take into account the complex relationship these Jews have with their dual identity, Jewish and American. For them, the “not in our name” slogan brandished in pro-Palestinian demonstrations expressed a sense of unease both as Jews AND as Americans.
It was in this particular context that Mamdani emerged on the local and national political scene and presented American Jews with difficult choices.
The questions Mamdani poses to New York and American Jews
American Jews are living in particularly perilous times: their physical safety is threatened by the rise in antisemitic acts, their support for a Jewish and democratic Israel is complicated by the country’s evolution, and their confidence in the strength and resilience of American institutions is severely shaken by Trump’s attacks.
The statistics on antisemitism are relentless in the United States, particularly in New York. According to the ADL, antisemitism continued to rise in 2025, with anti-Zionism accounting for a significant increase in the phenomenon.
Since entering the campaign, and especially since his victory in the Democratic primary in June, Mamdani has held numerous meetings with all denominations of Jews in New York, from the most liberal to the ultra-Orthodox. He has surrounded himself with Jewish advisors and has committed himself to fighting antisemitism on a massive scale. He has also expressed his desire to see the history of Zionism included in the school curriculum, recognizing the importance of Zionism in the contemporary Jewish experience.
It is therefore unfair to compare Mamdani to the French far-left party obsessed with Israel La France Insoumise, and the opportunistic exploitation by this party of Mamdani’s victory should not lead us to believe otherwise. While it is difficult to accuse Mamdani of antisemitism, he is nonetheless not above reproach on this issue. He either failed to understand the gravity of the moment and the concerns of American Jews, or he did not want to understand, no doubt for electoral reasons. Mamdani failed to reassure Jews, even though the link between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is indisputable. Extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric is inseparable from antisemitic acts. Calling someone a “dirty Zionist” or preventing Zionists from participating in a meeting or activity is not criticism of Israel, but pure antisemitism. And Mamdani was unable or unwilling to distinguish his own “ideological” anti-Zionism from the widespread anti-Zionism found on college campuses, which is often inseparable from antisemitism.
Mamdani’s anti-Zionism could become normalized in American political discourse tomorrow, and this is the greatest danger for American Jews who are attached to Israel. Worse still, it considerably complicates the task of liberal Zionists.
For many New York Jews, Mamdani’s anti-Zionism would have been less worrying in a more peaceful context, with low levels of antisemitism as was the case until 2015, or under “relative control” until the massacre of October 7.
The Jewish electorate was closely scrutinized during this election, with frequent and varied polls: between 16% and 38% of Jews supported Mamdani, according to polling institutes. According to another poll in July, which gave Mamdani 44% support among the city’s Jews, the figure was 67% for 18-44 year olds. One can imagine that among young non-Haredi Jews, this figure is probably 80%, illustrating the widening gap between generations among American Jews, particularly around their relationship with the State of Israel. In this sense, this election reveals the real divisions among American Jews, particularly by generation and degree of religious practice.
Mamdani’s anti-Zionism could become normalized in American political discourse tomorrow, and this is the greatest danger for American Jews who are attached to Israel. Worse still, it considerably complicates the task of liberal Zionists who have always defended the vision of democratic Zionism and a lucid attachment to Israel. It is this unconditional attachment to the country, but with a clear-eyed view of its politics, that is now being called into question.
There is also a fear that the Democratic Party, the natural home (for how long?) of Jews, will follow Mamdani’s lead and introduce policies that are increasingly critical of Israel, not of its policies but of its very legitimacy. Mamdani has opened a breach, and it is possible that openly anti-Zionist voices will push for a much more radical approach.
An irreversible evolution of the Democratic Party?
Mamdani’s victory could therefore accelerate the transformation of the Democratic Party. The great fear of many American Jews is that this party, their political home, will undergo a transformation similar to that of the Republican Party with the advent of Donald Trump. When Trump burst onto the political scene, the party initially ignored him, then downplayed his influence, before finally acknowledging the inevitable. Today, the GOP is completely Trumpified, both in form and substance. Historically favorable to free trade, the spread of democratic values, deregulated capitalism without state intervention, and immigration, it has made a radical shift and has not hesitated to say that its programmatic platform is now useless, in order to embrace all of Trump’s ideas, however contradictory or absurd they may be.
The Democratic Party is now in the midst of an identity crisis, with a massive loss of popular voters that it wants to win back at all costs.
New York is not America, and it would be an exaggeration to extrapolate Mamdani’s success to the national level. But a mixture of economic populism, exploitation of identity issues, and a hardening stance on the Israeli-Palestinian question could be a tempting path for the Democratic Party to win back the working classes on the one hand and young people on the other. In such a scenario, some American Jews would feel orphaned, deprived of the party they have supported for years, if it were to become more radical, especially on issues that many Jews do not share.
Israel is becoming a marker of American politics, the left-wing equivalent of what abortion is to the right.
More broadly, Mamdani’s victory, supported by the two figures of the party’s left wing, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, is a symbol of the accelerated polarization of American politics. For American Jews, this situation is new and perilous. After the Republican Party became nativist, under the influence of evangelical Christians and rejecting the rule of law, the conversion of the Democratic Party into a more or less radical left-wing party, both on economic and societal issues, would be a very worrying development.
What is the relationship between the Democratic Party and Israel?
Israel is becoming a marker of American politics, the left-wing equivalent of what abortion is on the right. Until the 1990s, there were many Republicans who supported women’s freedom of choice, but today it is impossible to win any nomination, local or national, while defending the right to abortion. Given the mistrust of Israel among Democratic voters, 77% of whom believe that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, it is possible that Israel will become for Democrats what abortion is for Republicans: a litmus test for any candidate of that party, especially if they aspire to a national career.
When a centrist politician like Seth Moulton officially denounces AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobby, and announces that he will return contributions from this lobby, which is an unconditional defender of the Israeli government (unlike J Street, which combines defense of Israel with criticism of its government’s policies), the significance of the moment is clear to everyone. This is indeed a fundamental turning point in American politics and in the United States’ relationship with Israel, at least among Democrats.
This is also what is at stake with Mamdani’s victory, which spectacularly reshuffles the cards for the Democratic Party. In addition to the fundamental shift in policy toward Israel, particularly the defense of its democratic institutions, current and future Israeli leaders must keep this new situation in mind in order to avoid it and rebuild strong ties with the Democratic Party. At stake is the future of American support for Israel, which cannot depend solely on the Republican Party, itself subject to anti-Zionist and even openly antisemitic forces.
Post-October 7 Manichaeism
Presenting Mamdani’s victory as proof of the Democratic Party’s extremist drift and a harbinger of dark days for American Jews is not fundamentally inaccurate, but it is very simplistic. It is impossible to ignore the context that made this victory possible, with the significant support of a portion of the city’s Jewish community.
In this sense, Mamdani’s victory reflects the turmoil in the Jewish world after October 7. The rise in antisemitic acts, the obsession of a large part of the far left with blaming Israel for all the evils of the world, and the excessive simplification through the prime of the dominant and the dominated have in turn created a loss of nuance. For many in the Jewish world, criticism of the Israeli government has become impossible and even treasonous, an unacceptable concession to the spirit of the times and, even more so, to the real enemies of Israel and the Jews.
We see the same patterns surrounding Mamdani’s victory. The latter is problematic enough that it should not be caricatured and presented as the advent of jihad in City Hall, or as evidence of the naivety of New York Jews, which borders on stupidity or even treason. This lack of nuance has characterized the last weeks of the campaign, with virtually no effect. Above all, it prevents reflection on the causes that may have led to the victory of this problematic candidate, beyond even his positions on Israel and Zionism.
Israel is no longer seen, even by American Jews, as a small, threatened country, but as a superpower.
For Jews and supporters of Israel, this victory should raise questions about Israel’s growing unpopularity, which is not solely the result of antisemitic and radical Third Worldism (which do indeed exist…). This challenge must also obviously concern Israeli leaders, who cannot hide behind antisemitism alone to explain their ostracism. Yitzhak Rabin himself defended the idea that Israel’s status also depended on its behavior, without denying the obsessive antisemitism of some who will never forgive Israel as a state and as a representation of Jews.
For reasonable Democrats, supporters of regulated and fair capitalism, and not of an economy administered with demagogic solutions, Mamdani’s victory must raise questions about the rise of inequality, the deep injustices of American society, and the flaws in the American democratic model, particularly at the institutional level. Without this introspection, this victory will not be a warning shot, but the prelude to a definitive divorce between the Democratic Party and Israel, a deep rift between American Jews and Israel against a backdrop of intergenerational divorce, and the advent of a populist and demagogic Democratic Party, which will plunge the United States into major instability where, torn between extremes, it could then descend into violence.
In this context, Mamdani’s victory is a potentially decisive moment for American politics and for the future of the relationship between the Jews of the world’s largest diaspora and Israel.
A new relationship between American Jews and Israel?
The fact that between 30 and 50% of non-Orthodox Jews, and between 50 and 80% of young non-Orthodox Jews in the city voted for an anti-Zionist necessarily raises questions about the relationship between American Jews and Israel. The AIPAC lobby is completely overwhelmed in responding to these new challenges. Professional American hasbarists who justify all the actions of the Israeli government believe they are defending Israel and ensuring its centrality within the Jewish world, but they are doing the opposite, alienating many liberal Jews from Israel.
Love for Israel and defense of Zionism require a new relationship between the diaspora and Israel, with less pathos and more real understanding. Calling for unconditional and financial support for a country threatened by its Arab neighbors will no longer suffice. Israel is no longer seen, even by American Jews, as a small, threatened country, but as a superpower. In this context, the relationship between Israelis and American Jews must be a mature and balanced one, not that of a child demanding the unconditional support of its parents, including financial support. The KKL’s blue box must give way to something else, which is in itself good news, as it indicates the tremendous success of the Israeli economy in freeing itself from financial dependence.
This new, more balanced relationship requires the weakening of the Haredi establishment, which has ostracized the majority of American Jews, and the creation of new ties with young American Jews beyond the traditional hasbara, with programs such as Birthright and more significant exchanges with trips by young American Jews to Israel and young Israeli Jews to the United States.
Among Mamdani’s Jewish voters, a significant portion identify as Zionist, supporting a Jewish and democratic state. While some voted for Mamdani by default, others did so enthusiastically, sometimes believing that the time had come for a new alliance between liberal Zionists and anti-Zionists.
The majority of American Jews are already troubled by the rise in antisemitic acts, concerned about Trump and his attacks on American democracy, and opposed to Netanyahu. Mamdani, with his demagoguery and his exploitation of Israel’s evolution to hammer home his anti-Zionism, is a new challenge to overcome.
This is the seemingly bizarre idea put forward by Brad Lander, the finance officer in the outgoing administration, where he was the most senior Jewish official. Interviewed in a long article in The Guardian about Mamdani’s candidacy, his words are valuable in understanding what is at stake for American Jews with regard to Mamdani. Lander believes that liberal Zionists must be able to collaborate with anti-Zionists, just as anti-Zionists must stop labeling supporters of a two-state solution for two peoples as racists. This alliance is also being pushed in Israel by a section of the Zionist left, which believes that the time has come for an alliance with anti-Zionist Arab parties.
For Jews over the age of 50, this coexistence is not self-evident, but for younger, openly liberal Jews, it is almost natural. It is in this light that we can understand Mamdani’s success among young Jews. For the latter, anti-Zionism is not a deal-breaker, it is not even a problem but a variation of their own relationship with Israel, and for some, it is their own opinion. This porosity between liberal Zionism and “soft” anti-Zionism should encourage us to rethink liberal Zionism in the diaspora in order to better defend it and to forcefully reclaim the Zionist banner, just as protesters opposed to judicial reform have reappropriated the Israeli flag.
Is there a place for liberal Zionism in the diaspora?
The current Israeli government has done nothing to unify the Jewish people or Israelis. Willing to ally itself with antisemitic forces in the name of defending Israel, it does not offer a positive vision of Zionism and even distorts it, thus risking the normalization of anti-Zionism. Does this government still defend the idea of a state for the Jewish people, or a state for certain Jews who are politically nationalist and religiously traditionalist or Orthodox? The government’s secret jubilation at seeing a record number of Israelis, who are generally educated and liberal, leave the country may raise questions, for example, and its contempt for liberal Jews, both politically and religiously, is now clear for all to see.
In this regard, the Israeli government bears overwhelming responsibility, not so much for the rise in antisemitism as for the normalization and acceptability of anti-Zionism, including among American Jews, especially the younger generation.
Mamdani’s evasive comments on the disarmament of Hamas and his ambiguous remarks on the slogan “Globalize the intifada” have set a tone for which he is certainly primarily responsible, and which his political opponents have sought to exploit, without success. This sequence is reminiscent of the Democrats’ inability to denounce antisemitism on campuses, which was exploited by the Republicans in 2024. Mamdani has found an objective ally in the current Israeli government, which tends to justify the anti-Zionism espoused by the new mayor of New York.
The majority of American Jews are already troubled by the rise in antisemitic acts, concerned about Trump and his attacks on American democracy, and opposed to Netanyahu and the path he is taking Israel down. Mamdani, with his demagoguery and his exploitation of Israel’s evolution to hammer home his anti-Zionism, is a new challenge to overcome. In this sense, this election is for them a new indicator of unease, of awareness, and perhaps of a call to action, to speak out and reaffirm their identity and their attachment to a liberal and democratic Zionism. This is a vast program to be carried out jointly with the majority of Israelis who are frightened by the evolution of their country…
Sébastien Levi
Sébastien Levi is Vice Chair of J Street-New York City chapter in charge of relations with members of Congress. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.
