Hello, and welcome back to On the Nose, the Jewish Currents podcast. I'm Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents, and I'll be your host today. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist from Queens, just logged a historic win in the Democratic mayoral primary, beating Andrew Cuomo, who many considered the favorite. There's a lot to talk about here, and instead of doing too much introduction, I just want to jump right in. I'm joined by senior reporter Alex Kane, associate editor Mari Cohen, and editor-at-large Peter Beinart. Thank you guys for being down to have this conversation so soon after the event.
Alex Kane:Happy to be here, but very tired.
AA:Yeah, well, maybe we can actually just talk a little bit about last night. I mean, for me, I'll just say I was refusing to go to any watch parties. I honestly was just remembering all those images of Hillary watch parties from 2016 and just feeling like I couldn't do it again. I just did not want to be in a public place and feel that disappointed. And as soon as I saw the numbers going where it looked like they were going, I left, went to a Zohran watch party in my neighborhood. There were almost a dozen or more watch parties throughout the city put on by DSA. They were all packed, and it was amazing to be there in that moment when Andrew Cuomo conceded, which is, I think, something nobody expected. Everybody expected that we were going to be waiting at least a week for results. And where I was, at least, nobody was under the impression that this was the end of the road. Definitely that there was going to be a long-haul campaign in the general, and also that what it means for a leftist mayor in New York City to actually do this job is gonna be something—we don't know how it's gonna work yet. But everybody just feeling a lot of hope, which is something that we really have not felt at all in, I mean, at least the last two years, but certainly since 2016, and maybe even before. So this is a big win for the left in this moment, just like emotionally. I feel like that can't be overstated.
AK 2:19
Yeah, I mean, I bought into what most reporters and analysts bought into, which is that Mamdani was not going to win. I was pleasantly surprised as he climbed in the polls but didn't really give that a second thought until there was two polls that came out that showed him leading or very close. But even then, basically as a defense mechanism (I think we can all relate to this), I didn't want to believe it. Because I didn't really feel like being disappointed. And also, I am in a bubble. I mean, I think everybody is in their own bubble, right? Like, it's not like Cuomo voters aren't in their bubbles. And my bubble in my neighborhood was overwhelmingly for Mamdani. So I was basically pushing back against the desire to believe that the people who I'm talking to is the electorate, which—it's a slice of the electorate, and oftentimes it's the electorate, college-educated millennials, that don't determine who wins a citywide election. This time, they were the anchor, along with Muslim immigrants, that powered the Mamdani win.
AA 3:25
Peter, I want to ask you—you're our Upper West side correspondent for the purposes of this conversation: It was not one of the districts that went overwhelmingly for Mamdani. And particularly, you know, we're about to talk about the Jewish voters and how they're feeling after this win. So what's the vibe up there?
Peter Beinart 3:43
I think that obviously, one of the things that I've always found really hard to disentangle when we're thinking about these questions is the question of people's views about Israel and the questions of people's economic position in the city. One of the things that really struck me when I moved from Washington to New York was that I would find that people who were basically Jews of roughly the same age, roughly the same religious observance—the kind of people I would go to shul with in Washington were to the left politically of their equivalents in New York. Not that they were on the far left, but they would vote for Democrats, whereas their equivalents in New York would be more likely to vote for Republicans. And I don't think it's because their views on Israel were different. It's just because they were different kinds of professions, and the people in Washington tended to work for the government, a lot of them, and so they were cross-pressured in a way. Whereas a lot of people who live in New York who are fairly affluent, so they live on the Upper East Side or the Upper West Side, are in professions where they just don't like the left, period. And they don't make a clear distinction between not liking the left about taxes and not liking the left about police and not liking the left about Israel, but it is, as you all know, it is a bit more socially acceptable to talk about it in terms of Israel and antisemitism.
AA 4:50
Than to talk about it in terms of class.
PB 4:52
Than to talk about class. I mean, I remember years and years ago—more than a decade ago—I was looking at some interviews that Chuck Schumer did with this Orthodox Jewish talk show host. And Schumer always has this thing where he says you know, that: My name is Schumer, we were the Shomrim, I see it as my role to be a Shomer, to be a guardian of the Jewish people. And this radio talk show literally says: Can you also be a guardian for not eliminating the interest loophole deduction? It was like the most extreme version of this—kind of crass, but I think in more subtle ways, these things come together a lot. So I think that's a big part of the geographical but generational difference between how older people like me and younger people are situated, in terms of how they perceive the city, how they perceive socialism, to what degree they think things are working, and to what degree they're willing to roll the dice on very different policies, because these policies are not working for them currently.
AA 5:42
Yeah, I mean, I think that might also help us to understand who the Jewish voter is who voted for Lander and probably ranked Mamdani. Like, they're probably secular Jewish New Yorkers. They may not actually be young, because I think the young vote really did go to Mamdani. But they might not live on the Upper West Side or the Upper East Side. They might live in cheaper parts of Brooklyn or have bought in Brooklyn a long time ago or whatever, and that probably made a difference.
PB 6:10
Yes. And maybe a little bit less religiously affiliated, perhaps.
Mari Cohen 6:14
Yeah. I mean, I would call that probably the Park Slope vote, right? Like, if we look at Park Slope, which also is Lander's former city council district where he lives, Zohran did win Park Slope 45%, which does show the number of, I think, progressive people living there. Obviously, it's more diverse than just being white Jews who live in Park Slope, but also Lander came in second with 35%, and Cuomo only got 13%. So it is true that there are sections of the city where a lot of Jews live that did vote for Zohran and for Lander. I mean, even the Upper West Side is pretty interesting because you can see that Cuomo only won by 5%, and Zohran actually got 30% of the vote. So even there, it wasn't necessarily a blowout.
AA 6:57
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that is kind of shocking to me because that actually tracks with, I would say, national statistics around Jews who are very progressive or left on Israel/Palestine. I mean, obviously not every person who lives on the Upper West Side is Jewish, but a lot of them are. So that's interesting and maybe also complicates the way that we're talking even about the Upper West Side. Peter, I just watched what you sent out to your Substack subscribers this morning. You really made the point that anyone talking about what Jewish leaders are thinking or what the Jewish community thinks right now is really missing the point of this election and, of course, of this moment.
PB 7:36
Yeah, I mean this is something that, obviously, Jewish Currents is writing about and embodying, right? That the red lines that the organized American Jewish community establishes, in terms of what the Jewish position is (which is often parroted, in various ways, by the mainstream media)—the percentage of American Jews who fall outside those red lines is just much larger than most American politicians, and I think a lot of journalists, either realize or are willing to admit, right? I mean, again, I cited this poll, which was from last May, where 30% of American Jews said they thought Israel was committing genocide. And I'm sure if last May it was 30%, it's got to be higher today. And this is not just a view that's considered wrong in mainstream American Jewish circles. It's a view that's basically considered prima facie evidence of antisemitism, right? So there's just a complete mismatch between this ability to control the terms of public discourse about the Jewish community and the reality, which is that there is not a Jewish community. It's one of the things that distinguishes America from other countries, actually. I was in Australia, for instance. There is much more of a cohesive Jewish community in Australia for a variety of reasons, and it's much easier to say there's a center and there's a periphery. And if you're in the periphery, you're really in the periphery.
AA 8:50
And in Europe, too.
PB 8:52
Absolutely. And even in Canada. In America, it's much less that way, and it's becoming less that way. And I think that people are just, partly because of their own fear of being called antisemitic themselves, or running afoul of the American Jewish establishment—like Stephen Colbert when he was interviewing Mamdani—they participate in this discourse and basically say: The Jews are really afraid of you. What do you say to the Jews? Whereas we all know that actually, that's just wrong. Some of the Jews are really afraid, and many of the Jews are super excited.
AK 9:21
Yeah, I mean, that also speaks to where this breaks down along religious observance in Brooklyn and the confusion or misrepresentation of the Jewish vote. If you don't know much about the Jewish vote or Jewish communities in New York, you look at: What precincts and areas can you say are majority Jewish? And those are Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, and they voted overwhelmingly for Cuomo. But then, you look at more secular Jews—and not just secular Jews, but the more secular you get, the more likely it is that you're going to vote for an anti-Cuomo candidate, whether that's Lander or Mamdani. And so you really have to break it down amongst religious observance, amongst class, and understand that the Jewish community is not monolithic, even though nationally, we can say most Jews probably support Israel as a Jewish state—there's a significant minority that rejects that.
AA:Well, I mean, look, this is a point that we make over and over again on this podcast, in Jewish Currents. I think the reason it bears repeating right now is because the question is: How much of a message is this election sending? Politically, in the political realm broadly, but also to media. If you're Colbert—I mean, obviously, Peter, you were referring to a moment where Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani went on The Colbert Show, and Colbert really gave voice to a certain Jewish anxiety, taking it completely at face value in ways that, I mean, I felt uncomfortable with his framing.
Stephen Colbert:Let's talk about the elephant in the room, which is that there are many people in New York, even people who would support your candidacy otherwise, who don't want to support you because of the Jewish community's fear of the true and rising antisemitism—not only around the world, but in this country and, shamefully, in New York, which has the largest Jewish population of any city other than Tel Aviv in the whole world. And they are worried. They're very upset by some of the things that you've said in the past, and they are afraid that your mayorship would actually lead to increased antisemitism.
AA:And I think what Zohran said really knocked it out of the park. I mean, he was way more gracious than he certainly had to be for many of his supporters.
Zohran Mamdani:I know where that fear is coming from. It's a fear that is based upon the horrific attacks we've seen in Washington, DC, in Boulder, Colorado, and it's a fear that I hear also from New Yorkers themselves. Just a few days after the horrific war crime of October 7th, a friend of mine told me about how he went to his synagogue for Shabbat services, and he heard the door open behind him, and a tremor went up his spine as he turned around, not knowing who was there and what they meant for him. And ultimately, this is because we're seeing a crisis of antisemitism. And that's why, at the heart of my proposal for a Department of Community Safety, is a commitment to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%.
AA:But the question is: What are the messages from this election? Like, if you're outside of this and trying to figure out how to orient yourself politically, maybe even not as a Jewish person, but as people in politics, people in media who are gonna shape what happens next.
PB:I mean, I've had a couple of things. I think there is a message that I think politicians can take from this, which is that members of the Democratic Party hate the political establishment, and they hate their political establishment for a variety of reasons. And Gaza and Israel/Palestine is not the number one, but it is part of that. And that public opinion in the Democratic Party has been moving very fast on this issue. It's actually been moving fastest now among older Democrats, who have now caught up to younger Democrats. There's not even a big generational gap among Democrats. So you see that, and you think: I've got an opportunity, because I'm gonna be running against these guys who are not able to pivot on this issue because they're too entrenched with the pro-Israel establishment. I can do a Mamdani version of this, and I can catch fire, and I can raise money. And that fills me with a lot of hope, and I think there will be candidates who do that. But I do think the challenge is, though, we have to remember: Mamdani was incredibly good, incredibly skilled. You have to be an unbelievably talented politician to be able to survive under these conditions of relentless and often really disingenuous scrutiny. AOC, Mamdani, right—these are extraordinary political talents. Most politicians can't do that.
AA:Well, and they had a very weak opponent in Andrew Cuomo: multiple corruption scandals, sexual harassment, and inappropriate touching, et cetera, with multiple women. I mean, that's a slam dunk. And I think what we see over and over again, whether it's on the Republican or Democratic side, is you have to go to where the enthusiasm is. And I think you're right, Peter, that it's not about the question of whether people think about Israel/Palestine as their number one issue, but it is about whether that becomes emblematic of a politician's inability to hold their ground, to say what they think is true, and to speak truth to power and not cater to other interests.
MC:Yeah, I mean, in terms of candidate weakness, if you think about a certain type of Jewish voter that Cuomo might have been trying to target with his anti-Mamdani Israel related messaging, is, you know—think about strong, historically very active New York City voter, a liberal Jewish woman who's also generally Zionist and concerned about the excesses of the left. That person is probably not very jazzed about Cuomo after the sexual harassment scandal, right? Like that's the type of voter who has been concerned about that thing. And so, a stronger candidate, things might have been different. On the other hand, the fact that the Democratic Party is so consistently bad at selecting stronger candidates is part of the thing here, right? Like it's not a fluke that Cuomo was Cuomo. Cuomo being Cuomo is part of the essence of our current political world.
AK:Yeah, I mean, the parallels between Cuomo and Biden are very clear, in terms of older men from a totally different generation who do not understand where their party is. One thing I will say, going from weakness to strength, is that I agree with you that Zohran as a politician is similar to AOC, just in the charisma that he has within him. He's incredibly confident, he's an incredibly good speaker, he speaks to anyone and can speak off the cuff, like AOC, and is just really inspirational to watch. But unlike AOC, Zohran has a deep connection to this issue. And so I think he was able, to a greater extent than AOC when she first came onto the scene—remember, in 2018, when AOC won the primary, she went on PBS—there's this clip that gets passed around every time AOC is in the news, mostly from gleeful conservatives because AOC really stumbled—the host asked her about Israel, and she gave a totally incoherent, weak answer. She didn't know.
PBS Interviewer:You used the term the occupation of Palestine. What did you mean by that?
AOC:Oh, I think what I meant is like the settlements that are increasing in some of these areas and places where Palestinians are experiencing difficulty in access to their housing and homes.
PBS 16:29 Do you think you can expand on that?
AOC:Yeah, I mean, I think I'd also, just—I am not the expert on geopolitics.
AK:You compare that to Zohran from the start.
AA:Right, he knows this cold.
Zohran Mamdani:I know there are many New Yorkers with whom I have a disagreement about the Israeli government's policies. And also, there are many who understand that that's a disagreement still rooted in shared humanity, because the conclusions I've come to, they are the conclusions of Israeli historians like Amos Goldberg. They are echoing the words of an Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who said just recently: What we are doing in Gaza is a war of devastation. It is cruel, it is indiscriminate, it is limitless, it is criminal killing of civilians.
AK:He knows this inside and out. Obviously, his dad is Mahmood Mamdani, a famous post-colonial scholar. Mamdani was a member of SJP at Bowdoin College. And I've interviewed him a couple of times about Israel, and most specifically, I interviewed him about when he introduced the bill—Mari and I did a piece a couple of years ago when he introduced the bill to basically strip the tax-exempt status of New York charities that send millions of dollars to Israeli settlements. And so he knows this issue inside and out.
AA:And better than most Jewish voters in the city, let's just be clear, or the ones that are mad at him.
AK:Absolutely. And the last thing I'll say about this is that Mamdani, I would say, calibrated his principles on Palestine in what I would say is a smart way and what some leftists, maybe some would say he sold out or that he went too far towards the other way. But if you look at his rhetoric as he came up in politics, there's plenty of clips where he's endorsing BDS, where he's leading rallies and chanting for BDS. And as he climbed in the polls, he recognized that he needed to cut off the narrative that he was hostile to Jews. And so, he repeatedly had to engage in the question: Does Israel have a right to exist? And his answer at first was: Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights. And the right-wing Jewish world hated that, giving the game away. But then on Colbert, he said:
MM:Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist and a responsibility also to uphold international law.
AK:And then, he made a quip that got him into some trouble—at least in the headlines—where he was trying to contextualize what Globalize the Intifada means. And then, he abandoned that. He pivoted from trying to contextualize it to saying: I don't use that word because I want to have clarity on what I'm talking about. What I believe is everybody should have equal rights and dignity. And so you saw this, really, evolution. And again, the principles never changed. The language did change, and I think that's significant, and, in part, I would say it contributed to his win.
AA:It's enormous message discipline that we saw him employing and also, I really do think a lesson for other politicians who may not know as much about this issue as Zohran Mamdani, on how to reframe these kinds of conversations. I mean, again and again, we see: Does Israel have the right to exist? It's a total thought-terminating cliche where the conversation is basically over. And yeah, we saw him transcend that.
PB:Yeah, I think that's exactly, I mean, the answer is—and it's easier for him because he knows so much—but you don't have to know so much. Move away from all of the jargon and all the formulations and just basically speak about basic principles, right? Basically say: I believe everyone should be treated equally.
MC:That's the nut of it.
PB:Yeah.
MC:I mean, I think the formulation, “I support Israel's right to exist as a state with equal rights” is so brilliant. Or like, “I don't support any ethnostates, I support their right to exist as a state with equal rights.” I mean, it's brilliant. It's impossible to refute. I mean, people are trying; some of the things I've seen the pro-Israel crowd say was: Well, Israel does have equal rights for the Palestinian citizens who live within its borders. Which obviously, total obfuscation of the specific point about all the people in the occupied territories living under apartheid. And then also, obviously, the discrimination against non-Jewish citizens in the state. So I've seen that, and then I saw some people getting into arguments about like: Well, you support these other ethnostates, and it's not true that he doesn't support those, so he can support Israel. And it's like, if you're getting into an argument about how your ethnostate is better than their ethnostate, you're on the losing foot. It's not the same as being able to say: Israel's a light unto other nations and a beautiful democracy. You've lost the battle a little bit. So I think it was a really strong rhetorical move. And then also, I mean, the Colbert version, moderated a little bit, I think even what he did there was interesting in that he says: I support Israel's right to exist like all states and to uphold the law. I think the “like all states” is actually a useful reframe to say this is not one special snowflake type of thing. This is a state that has an obligation to uphold international law like any other state, and I'm going to treat it like any other state. And so he does a bit of that subtle reframing. And so I think it's useful. And I also think the people who really care about the “Does Israel have a right to exist line,” I don't know how many of them are swayed by his response. It's a shibboleth, and it's just you either uphold it—you say Israel has a right to exist or not, and it's not about interrogating what that means. It's just about this signaling thing. I mean, I think what those of us on this podcast would say is that there's actually no right to exist for a state. Peter has written about this, lots to say there. But I think, especially the equal rights line, is a signal to his base, to kind of help them understand him standing on principles. And I feel like it worked for that, even if I don't know if anybody's mind was actually swayed by that.
AA:But I think that in this case, it's not that piece of it that I think is the part that was trying to sway people. It's the piece of talking about him talking to Jewish people about their fears and recognizing their fears. He did a fair amount of like: I'm listening to you; I care about you. And I actually think that this piece of things is one of the more interesting pieces. He's not playing a purity politics thing around Jewish feelings. He's basically saying: I will validate your feelings, but I'm going to maintain my position of upholding international law across the board. And that is interesting and not something that we've necessarily—I mean, AOC has been trying to do it, but AOC in Congress has actually capitulated a little bit more to at least soft acceptance of the “anti-Zionism is antisemitism” thing. I think he actually was doing something interesting because—I mean, there's somebody on Twitter who really gives me a hard time often, who I find extremely frustrating, who is this person named, I don't know how to say his last name, Andrés Spokoiny from the Jewish Funders Network. And he was basically saying: I don't think Mamdani is gonna do anything to hurt Jews in New York City. What could he possibly pass? It's the fact that 400,000 New Yorkers didn't care that we're afraid and that this scares us. And I mean, that just is the whole thing right there. It's like, if actually what this is emotional, and Mamdani is willing to do some of that emotional work, he may, in time, be able to win some people over, because these are not actually material grievances. I mean, another thing is, as Peter was saying, some Jewish New Yorkers may not be in a position to benefit that much from the kinds of affordability relief that Mamdani is offering, but also, to ask New Yorkers to vote against their own affordability crisis because of Jewish feelings is completely insane.
PB:Right, and it also just shows the way in which the whole notion of Jews is flattened in the identity contract, right? Like maybe there are Jews in New York who are afraid of not being able to afford—
AA:Childcare.
PB:Right, but I think so often, the class divisions among Jews is erased, and obviously, it's not only class because you've got religious observance, too.
AA:Right, and there's a lot of poverty in Hasidic communities that are going to vote reliably for Cuomo for other reasons, so I don't want to gloss over that.
PB:Right, but I think the Free Press had a piece about how rich people are gonna go on strike, and they're gonna leave New York. You know, Bill Ackman, these people are saying that—
AA:Where the fuck are they gonna go? Where are they gonna go to the opera? I'm sorry, but like literally—where are they gonna go to fucking fancy restaurants?
PB:
They’re going to your homeland, Arielle
AA:I understand that they're going to Florida, but Florida is still a backwater, culturally, and they can't do the kinds of things in Florida that they do here. They can't sit on the boards; they can't have the social life. Maybe they will in like 10, 20 years, but I'm sorry, Florida does not offer what New York City offers. For the Orthodox it does, but for the rich it does not. Sorry, sorry, I got mad about Florida. But I do think, actually, we should go back to talking specifically about the Jewish response. Just to say you have the RJC, Republican Jewish Coalition, basically saying like: Get out now. Beitar saying the same thing: We have to evacuate New York City. You have Blake Flayton calling the Jews home to the motherland. You have what seems like a real mass hysteria of like the whole Franklin Foer, Golden Age of Jews in New York City in particular, a city that we built, that this is all over. So first of all, what do we make of that response? Has anybody seen any Jewish institutional responses? Maybe let's start there.
MC:I mean, just in terms of institutional Jewish anticipations to the election, I was forwarded a very strange email from the Marlene Meyerson JCC to its constituents, which is a big JCC on the Upper West Side, that they're like: We're a 501(c)3, and we can't tell people who to vote for, but there's been candidates in the race who are saying things that do not align with our important JCC positions on Israel, and we encourage everybody to look at it. And so they're basically telling everybody not to vote for Zohran. And I don't know if they've put out a statement yet responding, but I imagine we're gonna see things like that. Like: Oh, our hearts are with our community at this time when we're worried about this candidate, and we'll have to see what happens. And I mean, I guess my response is that it's just a little sad. It's like, guys, you're doing this to yourself. I mean, I think for some people, it's a little bit cynical. Blake Flayton, for example, he lives in Israel. I think he's a little gleeful because he wants people to see that actually, the US is so antisemitic, and they can come to Israel instead, even though he's also tweeting from the bomb shelter, and maybe there's a reason that that doesn't appeal to people. Whatever. But I think for some people, it's really genuine. Like, I think they really are scared. Like they really have convinced themselves that they are at risk in New York City and that Zohran is a threat to them. I find that so sad. Like it's a real putting yourself in a box of your own making.
PB:Yeah, and I think also, there's a way in which antisemitism and that language is like the only language people have to describe a lot of things. And one of the things is like a very classic ethnic succession happening, right? Like there are more Muslims in New York—there are more Muslims who come as immigrants in New York. It's changed the demography. They're not a huge percentage. I think 12% of New York City is Muslim now. I think I saw 16% is Jewish. But the Muslim percentage of New York is rising a lot faster than the Jewish percentage, which I imagine is not rising at all, is maybe dropping. And so, from time in memoriam, new groups come along and they throw up their politicians. But Jews, I feel like instead of talking about that in a normal political way—if that candidate has a different set of views on Israel, it only gets discussed through this language of: Oh, people loved us, and we were safe, and now they hate us, and we're not safe.
AK:I would just say that this election was the encapsulation of a strategy that Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) have long pursued, which is basically that Jewish and Muslim solidarity and safety are inextricably tied up. You saw Brad Lander repeat that when he endorsed Mamdani and really gave him a boost. And there's basically two visions of the place of Jews in New York City and in the United States that is here, and it's a debate and a clash that are irreconcilable, which is basically like: Are Jews part of a multi-ethnic coalition in which minority rights are respected—and all minority rights are respected, and all human rights are respected—or can Jews strike out on their own, or should they strike out on their own and not be in coalition with other minority groups? And so this one vision ran out because it was a strong Jewish-Muslim coalition that really powered this, and, I think, fended off—I would say Lander did a really good job of fending off the attacks against Mamdani while never compromising on his principles, which are liberal Zionist. He affirmed that—that he believes in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, but he's against Netanyahu—but that Zohran Mandani is not an antisemite, is not a threat to you, and that actually he cares about you.
AA:Lander deserves some more attention here, and I think he really deserves a lot of credit for how much integrity he brought to this race. Also, I just want to underscore what you said, Alex. JFREJ deserves an enormous amount of credit. Lander has been a member of JFREJ for many, many years. They've really pioneered this kind of politics in the city by showing up. It's like when Jews were killed at the Tree of Life, JFREJ was bringing Muslim partners to protect the vigil. And vice versa: When Muslims are attacked, JFREJ shows up with their numbers, and they show up for fights for fair wages and everything. And Lander has been there, has also come up through JFREJ's politics. And I think it's really significant to think that an institution of the Jewish left had a real effect. I mean, Lander deserves credit in his own right, but I also just want to lift up JFREJ for providing the platform for that kind of politics—and Lander for running with it.
PB:Yeah, I think his role in a way is a little bit like Biden's role for Obama in 2008, which is that, politically, in terms of optics, Zohran needed a Jewish friend—and not a young, hip lefty. He needed a middle-aged Jewish guy who people could relate to, and Lander played that role really perfectly, right? And the second thing is, I think to call Lander a liberal Zionist is misleading, not because he doesn't support Israel as a Jewish state, but because most people who use this phrase liberal Zionist, what they mean is they support what Israel does and they give it some liberal justification, right? Lander, yes, he does believe in the idea of a Jewish state, whatever that means, but he's genuinely against the occupation. He's genuinely against the destruction of Gaza. He really is, even being willing to support some pressure on Israel to do that. That's actually a kind of liberal Zionism that you rarely find in the wild, which is part of the reason that the whole idea is so discredited. And Lander literally is that, which is why his differences with Mamdani weren't as important to him as his similarities.
MC:The other thing too, just in terms of Lander's political history on this—I mean, there's an interesting passage from a book from the ’90s that the Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluh dug up several months ago or last year when Lander was starting his campaign, which mentions the bris that Lander and his wife had for their son, in which he proudly pronounced his son to be a Jew without the right of return who's going to reject nationalism. And so, I think there's actually a little bit more anti-Zionism or non-Zionism in Lander than he will admit.
AA:Let's call it diasporism.
MC:Diasporism, I think he's got a lot of that in him, and I think he probably made a decision at some point, for his political career, that he was not going to be public about that. And I don't think that means that everything he says is disingenuous. I think he has certain real discomforts with the pro-Palestine left, and you see that, and there are times when he's been responsible for amplifying some of the claims that a certain action is antisemitic that I personally might disagree with. And so I think that's real. Like, I don't think he's just making that up, but I think there are certain things that he says as part of his political persona that are not necessarily really representative of his actual political background on this issue. Even something he said about people were attacking him for being a pro-BDS comptroller, and he made some tweet about always opposing BDS. I mean, I just don't know if I really believe that he's that opposed to BDS, to be honest. But I think that, again, he has made a decision that that is going to be his political strategy, which is obviously, as we know, very different than the decision that Mamdani made. And also, obviously, I think that Mamdani does not have that discomfort from the left and actually comes from the pro-Palestine activist left—specifically founded the SJP chapter at his undergrad. Again, I just think that that's in Lander, that history is there.
MC:And so, I think that is another reason why that alliance makes more sense. Also, I think Lander has been a DSA member for a really long time. I mean, I don't think he's super active, and I think JFREJ is probably much more representative of his political commitments, and JFREJ is the group that he's been more active with recently, but there is that shared DSA history. And I just want to say that I think DSA also—I mean, in addition to Zohran being such a manifestly talented politician, the ground campaign for him was absolutely huge. I mean, the last few days, my friends—I mean, canvassing constantly, phone banking all the time, texting everybody in their contacts, including exes they hadn't talked to in 10 years, to make sure they were voting for Zohran. Just so many people were out there doing it. And I think that doesn't always mean a victory. Both Hillary and Kamala's ground games were much better than the Trump ground or canvassing game, and that didn't necessarily mean anything. But I think in this case, when you're talking about an issue of name recognition, when the real thing that is pushing people towards Cuomo is name recognition, and you fight that by telling people about this other guy, volunteer support made a huge difference. And I think DSA can be credited for that. Also, obviously, the fact that Zohran is so talented and likable made people more excited to volunteer for him, for sure.
AA:I think there's a few things that we’re opening here in the last quarter of this podcast. One is just the fact that even the choice to cross-endorse with Lander, who had a different position on Israel, shows this pragmatism on the part of Mamdani that didn't actually mess with his principles or his credibility. I think that this is something that we should really be looking at. I've already started to see this fight brewing on Twitter and just in conversations about whether Mamdani's stance of really meeting people where they are, trying to pull them over, being involved in convincing and educating and all of that kind of thing, versus the fact that he just had a really strong ground game and stuck to his principles: Which one of those was definitive for him? And I think that—first of all, let's just say the obvious thing, which is that these things are not mutually exclusive, and a good candidate should do all of it. But I do think that this maps onto some of the things, Alex, that you've reported on in the past about DSA and electoralism. And I think what we've seen in the past is that Jamaal Bowman, for example, came into Congress and then had to moderate, at least slightly—I'm not even sure that he moderated that much, to be honest—but the DSA basically disowned him, and also, the DSA electoral energy, because of that and because of the infighting around that, really dropped. And it actually became, there was a quote, Alex, in one of your pieces—and maybe you could talk a little bit more about this—just about whether politicians should even listen to DSA considering that they can't deliver elections. And here we are now, after this mayoral primary, some of these electoral issues within DSA are at least put to bed by the fact that DSA can deliver an election—and even a long-shot election with the right candidate—but also a willingness to do politics and to accept a politician doing politics. So I think this is kind of important.
AK:Yes, although, I mean, DSA was the muscle, and without DSA, Zohran doesn't win, and Zohran comes from DSA, so it was different than Bowman in that Bowman just had the endorsement of DSA.
AA:Well, AOC maybe is a better example.
AK:Yeah. You know, at the same time, Zohran had to appeal to people well beyond the DSA base, and he did. He did that very successfully, and he did that by basically talking about very simple economic policies that are very easily understandable to people, that have nothing to do with the word socialism—although, obviously, the principles of socialism are certainly in the background, but freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants is not just a socialist value. It happened under Bill de Blasio, and de Blasio is not an anti-capitalist. And so that just shows you how Zohran’s political instincts to broaden the coalition beyond his most fervent core supporters really paid off. In terms of the debate over electoralism, I think right now we can say the sort of people who want to continue to contest the election on the Democratic Party line are certainly in the driver's seat. But I do think as soon as he becomes the mayor—if he defeats Eric Adams in the general election—that those debates will come roaring back because he is going to face some very difficult questions and competing interests and will inevitably have to make compromises. What happens if there's an encampment at Columbia University and there's immense pressure from the business class to send in the NYPD? What will Mamdani do, right? I mean, we should not predict, but these are the kinds of questions that are going to spark that debate once again because you're gonna have to contend with the possibilities of executive power but also the pressures and the limits that that places on you.
AA:I would even take it out of the Israel sphere. Like, what happens if he wants to shift priorities away from the NYPD, and they institute to slow down, and there's more crime, and then people in the city turn on that, you know? The police have an enormous amount of power in this city.
AK:And then the question becomes: What does Mamdani do to get the city back under his control? What compromises might he have to make? Because as a mayor, you can't abolish the prison industrial complex or single-handedly shift Israel policy, or raise the minimum wage, even, by yourself. You're gonna probably gonna need to make some compromises; that's probably gonna make parts of your fervent coalition very mad. And so, I think the debate will come back alive, then, and it will be very fascinating and interesting to see. But at the very least, we should say that this certainly proves the electoral wing of DSA's theory of the case: That they can win a citywide election in New York City and that they can begin to transform people's lives and win back power for a working class that, quite frankly, isn't really well-represented within the DSA itself.
MC:The golden age of the DSA organizer Jew getting a PhD in labor history in CUNY is alive and well, even if the other golden age of the Jew is ending. And I've probably been on a Hinge date with half of them. So I really know about it.
AA:I think the last question basically—and maybe I'll start with you on this, Peter—is: Does this portend the end of AIPAC politics, basically, or the stranglehold of pro-Israel money on this issue? Or is this just sui generis and we can't generalize?
PB:I mean, I think there's an opening. Because in a Democratic primary, if you catch fire in the presidential race, you can raise enough money to neutralize the money of AIPAC and their associated groups in a way that's really hard to do at the congressional level. So if you have a candidate who really has that talent, and especially if the person who emerges as the establishment candidate is a weak candidate for various reasons, I think there's an opportunity.
AK:I think it's a good question, and I think it just depends on the situation. Like, say if this mayoral election were happening last year, you might expect that Mamdani would lose, because the story of last year was that AIPAC was in the driver's seat. They boosted their candidates, George Latimer and Wesley Bell, who defeated Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who were two of the most outspoken pro-Palestine members in Congress. But I think what this shows is that A.) It's easier to win while maintaining a strong pro-Palestine message when you have a really diverse block of voters. In Bowman's district, he got redistricted to include much more of Westchester, so his district became wealthier, and whiter, and more Jewish than it had been prior. And he made some political missteps of his own, and then some votes that weren't missteps but that could easily be painted as wrong when he broke from Biden to try to push through a more progressive infrastructure agenda. And so Mamdani did not have that problem.
AK:And then on the role of money, I think we should do some reassessment on how we talk about the role of money because Mamdani had $25 million spent against him from Cuomo's super PAC, funded by many pro-Israel donors like Bill Ackman and others, and it didn't work. And those ads, many of them were about Israel. And so, I think Cuomo was banking on using Israel as a way to send the larger message that Mamdani is inexperienced, and out of touch, and way too radical for New York City—but it's not radical because the majority of Democrats disagree with what Israel is doing in Gaza. So I think that the candidate quality really matters, and the kind of election that you're competing in when it comes to whether AIPAC or general pro-Israel politics will win the day. But I do think that Mamdani shows that the days where that is taken as a given are definitely over, and that the day in which the views of Democratic Party voters on Israel and the views of their elected representatives are in sync will come perhaps sooner than we expected, although I think that it will still continue to take a long time given the power of incumbency and the fact that pro-Israel views remain very, very entrenched, particularly in Congress.
MC:Yeah.
PB:If I can just say one other just thing before we close out. My own obsession is, I just think one of the things that's important to know is that we think about the struggle among Jews—about how to interpret our history. One of the things that fascinates me—Mahmood Mamdani was among the South Asians expelled by Idi Amin. Do you know who else's parents had that exact same experience? Kash Patel's parents. Also Gujarati Indians expelled by Idi Amin. Rishi Sunak is also, though not Ugandan, also South Asian via East Africa. It's just really fascinating to me to remember that these are also a particular interpretation of Mamdani's own family history—not the inevitable, only one that he could have taken from his experience. So just as we're talking about the different ways that Jews can interpret our own tradition and history, either to be in solidarity with other people or, basically, to ally with supremacist forces, to me what's inspiring about Mamdani is that he's made that own choice, which was a choice within his own way of understanding where he comes from.
AA:Well, I think that's a good place to end. We maybe didn't talk as much as we could have about the kind of meltdown among Jewish pundits, but it's hard to know even what to say except that they are further and further from reality at this point. So God bless them.
MC:I also don't expect many of them to actually leave New York.
AK:I mean, there are Orthodox Jews that are leaving New York City, but it's not because of antisemitism, it's because it's really damn expensive to live here.
AA:Actually, maybe Zohran would help them.
AK:Yes.
PB:The problem with leaving New York is it's a little bit like not subscribing to the New York Times. You need to stay in New York so you can threaten to leave, just like you need to subscribe to the New York Times so you can threaten to unsubscribe to the New York Times. Otherwise, it doesn't do any good.
AA:Thank you, guys. This has been another episode of On the Nose. Thank you to our producer and editor, Jesse Brenneman. If you liked it, share this episode and subscribe to Jewish Currents, JewishCurrents.org. Thanks a lot, everyone. See you next time.