Mamdani Sweep in NYC Adds to Strains Between Jews and Democratic Party [View all]

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What unsettled them was the scale of victory by a trio of left-wing candidates who were endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and had made criticism of Israel the emotional core of their campaigns.

One, Democratic Socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier, attended a pro-Palestine rally in Times Square a day after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Fellow Democrats denounced the rally as condoning Hamas’s massacre. Yet Avila Chevalier still managed to overtake incumbent Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District, which includes Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.

Watching the results on a television at the Goldman party, Rachel Lavine, a member of the Village Independent Democrats political club, was astonished. “This is about hating Jews,” said Lavine. “I feel like we have a problem within the Jewish community of not understanding how serious this is. At this point, Israel is a beard for antisemitism.”

New York City boasts the largest Jewish community outside Israel and stands as a metropolis where generations of Jews have thrived while leaving an indelible cultural mark. Yet Tuesday’s results—after campaigns that dwelled on Israel and, in the view of some, deployed antisemitic tropes—have scrambled their relationship to the city while exposing fractures within their own community.

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While Tuesday night’s New York City results felt seismic—not least as an expression of Mamdani’s growing power—some analysts questioned their breadth. Pro-Israel moderates also prevailed, including Micah Lasher, who won a hotly contested race to succeed Jerry Nadler in Manhattan’s 12th District.

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Jewish Democrat from California who has long been a leading pro-Israel voice in Congress, said the results reflected the particular politics of a few New York districts—not the country.

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