The Jewish Response to Mamdani Can’t Be Fear

As an aspiring journalist, my work sometimes takes me beyond The Commentator’s realm in Midtown, Manhattan and into some strange corners of the city. On Tuesday night, the night of the New York City mayoral election, I found myself in one of the oddest yet: Curtis Sliwa’s election night watch party. Surrounded by reporters and a bunch of crazed Republicans, I crowded around a television in a dimly lit Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side and held my breath.

It was barely past 9 p.m. “AP Calls the NYC Mayoral Race for Mamdani,” the headline flashed. A familiar, grinning face materialized on screen. And just like that, at 34 years old and in less than half an hour, Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist from Queens, had become the 111th mayor of New York City. 

The mood in the room was somber (though I’m not sure what Sliwa voters were really expecting to happen). But for me, one of the very few Jews in the room whose phone was already blowing up with panicked texts, I felt more than disappointed. I felt afraid.

At that moment, my fear seemed to me entirely warranted. New York City had just elected a man who had made his pro-Palestine stance one of the cornerstones of his campaign; who was gloating on stage surrounded by some of Israel’s most outspoken enemies. But the more I watched the reactions pour in from my friends and family — the hysteria, the despair, the memes that showed “RIP NYC” carved into a gravestone — the more I wondered whether all this fear was really necessary. What had all the relentless warnings and doomsaying about our future as Jews in New York actually accomplished, besides sowing panic and revealing, once again, how few truly care? What would it do for us now? 

As the polling numbers continued to be announced, we learned that voter turnout for Mamdani on Nov. 4, 2025 was the highest for a Democratic candidate since 1969. Somehow, more than one million New Yorkers had voted for a self-proclaimed socialist who cozies up to anti-Israel radicals on the NYPD’s terrorist watch list and refuses to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” A man who avoids saying whether Israel has a right to exist, who proudly founded and led the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at his alma mater and who vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever set foot in New York City. 

The facts are plain: our allies, though strong-willed and dedicated, are few and far between. But still, does that give us license to cower? I don’t think it should. 

The Jewish community should be commended for their turnout and engagement in this year’s election. I was proud to stand in line at the East 33rd Street polls with fellow Stern students who went out of their way to have their voices heard. But the messaging that pushed many Jews to the polling booths, and moreover, the reaction to Tuesday’s results, has led me to question whether our main tactic of encouraging Jewish involvement — fear — is entirely sound.

Allow me, from my humble post as a student journalist, to suggest a mindset shift. What if we took an active role in civic life not out of panic, but out of principle? What if we engaged because it is the right thing to do — because what affects our neighbors affects us too? Because New York has sheltered the Jewish people for over a century, and therefore deserves our care, our investment and our respect for its future? What if resolve and vigilance, instead of fear, became our greatest weapons against the challenges that await us over the next four years?

New York City has faced bad mayors before. I can’t predict whether Mamdani will outdo them (though he seems to already be well on his way, at least in terms of rhetoric), but I can say this: We, both the YU and New York Jewish community, will be fine. We made it through the last two years which saw our streets overtaken with those who felt emboldened to call for our extinction, and we will make it through the next four as well. I can also say with confidence that the Jews have never prospered in a state of fear. Not once. If we truly aim to protect our future in this city, we need to shed our victim mentality immediately, turn our focus to the clear and, most importantly, present challenges, and then try to meet them head-on. 

At its height, YU stood as the beacon of Modern Orthodoxy, the central institution representing the values of Torah Umaddah. That beacon may have spread eastward as more of our leaders make their homes in Israel, but YU remains to this day as the voice reminding us not to lose ourselves in our books or retreat into isolation. We are not a community that acts only when afraid. 

As the tide shifts in this city, it is time, perhaps more than ever, to keep our heads up, our eyes open and remain actively engaged. Not just when things seem dire, but, next time, long before the battle even begins.