Click here to read the full opinion piece in Common Dreams
Brad Lander called me in the middle of NYC’s Democratic primary Election Day, during one of his breaks from the heat. I asked how he was feeling. “To be honest, I didn’t expect this, but I probably feel better than any other third place candidate in history.”
He had good reason to feel this way. As a Jewish candidate for mayor who aligned with and stood by his ostensible rival Zohran Mamdani, Lander had just done something extraordinary—he had modelled a kind of genuine solidarity that is all but unheard of in mainstream politics. What he was celebrating is the joy that comes with rejecting the politics of fear and division and allowing yourself to instead dream beyond the permissible.
As the executive director of a progressive Jewish organization fighting to make New York City a safe, affordable, caring home for all, dreaming beyond the permissible is our mission. Cynical politicians like former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and U.S. President Donald Trump have made careers out of playing to people’s fears and telling us, again and again, what we can’t do—what is impermissible to dream.
From lying, scare-tactic mailers to TV ads that prompted death threats against his loved ones, the attacks on Zohran Mamdani reflect the worst impulses of a MAGA-friendly Democratic establishment willing to use anti-Muslim bigotry and distorted claims of antisemitism to derail a threat to their power. The viciousness of the backlash in the days following Mamdani’s win has been breathtaking, even to those of us familiar with the extent to which racism and Islamophobia are acceptable in American politics. To politicians who want to weaponize the machinery of fear, New York’s Jewish community might look like a soft target.
In a culture starved for political imagination, Mamdani and Lander represented a thrilling embrace of something new—permission for New Yorkers to reach for so much more than the table scraps we’ve been offered by the political establishment.
Too often that strategy is successful. But what we saw during the primary is that this time they hit a wall built of hope. Despite millions of dollars in attack ads from billionaire donors, it proved impossible to convince most Jewish New Yorkers that Zohran Mamdani was a rabid antisemite. It is telling that the attacks on Zohran come from high-priced political consultants and pundits who experience New York City the same way Andrew Cuomo does—from the back seat of hired black SUVs. For most of us, Mr. Mamdani is a deeply recognizable and loveable New York character. It’s the machine politicians who are the weirdos.
That’s why Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) was able to mobilize thousands of Jewish voters to canvass, knock doors, phone bank, and become an integral part of the people-powered revolution that changed the direction of New York City politics last month. In a culture starved for political imagination, Mamdani and Lander represented a thrilling embrace of something new—permission for New Yorkers to reach for so much more than the table scraps we’ve been offered by the political establishment.