The New York City mayor has already doubled down on his remarks that AIPAC members are ‘monsters who move dark money’
A coalition of more than 700 rabbis from across the United States are demanding that New York mayor Zohran Mamdani retract his claim that the pro-Israel AIPAC organization is a group of “monsters who move dark money,” saying the inflammatory “antisemitic tropes” have put “a target on the backs of American Jews and their allies.” The letter comes as new polling shows that 82 percent of Jewish New Yorkers are concerned about rising antisemitism.
Mamdani’s June 22 speech drew widespread condemnation from Jewish and pro-Israel organizations who accused the socialist mayor of inciting his anti-Israel base to violence against Jews. Mamdani responded by doubling down on his remarks just a day later, condemning Israel for the weekend killing of “an Al Jazeera journalist, Ahmed Washah,” who was actually a Hamas sniper. With antisemitic hate crimes soaring in Mamdani’s New York, fueled by increasing anti-Israel sentiment, the coalition of rabbis warn that Mamdani could incite a pogrom.
“Using the language of ‘monsters’ against political opponents is an act of dehumanization, and when the targets of that dehumanization are overwhelmingly associated with the Jewish community the consequences become especially dangerous,” the more than 700 rabbis wrote in an open letter published Friday by the organization Jewish Majority. “History demonstrates that campaigns against Jews often begin with rhetoric portraying them as uniquely sinister, uniquely powerful and somehow less deserving of equal treatment. Mr. Mamdani’s words invoke a familiar story about Jewish power, Jewish money and Jewish manipulation of public life.”
Mamdani’s remarks, the rabbis note, were not mere political bluster. They came days after five individuals were charged by the FBI with a plot to kill AIPAC supporters in government, and on the same day Florida indicted a man for planning a mass shooting at an AIPAC office. “By casting pro-Israel civic participation as monstrous, conspiratorial and anti-democratic, Mr. Mamdani has put a target on the backs of American Jews and their allies,” they wrote.
“Mayor Mamdani should apologize. He should retract his remarks and affirm clearly that Jews and pro-Israel Americans are full participants in our democracy,” the rabbis wrote.
The letter was released alongside a new poll showing that 82 percent of Jewish New Yorkers—including nearly two-thirds of Mamdani’s own voters—fear the rising tide of antisemitism that has accelerated alongside the mayor. Of those who said they are alarmed by the rise in antisemitism, 73 percent attributed it to “the normalization of anti-Zionism.” The poll additionally found that by a ratio of three to one, “Jewish voters believe Mamdani’s refusal to strongly condemn ‘globalize the Intifada’ has directly emboldened pro-Hamas protesters.”
That slogan—which calls for Israel to be destroyed through violence—has become a hallmark of New York City protests in recent months. In May, anti-Israel agitators marched through a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn “chanting for an intifada and waving a Hezbollah flag,” according to the Times of Israel. That same month, the Justice Department announced an investigation into a protest outside the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan that also featured “chants calling for intifada.”
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi at New York’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, said the latest survey “confirms what I have seen and heard from Jewish New Yorkers across this city, and what should be obvious to anyone paying attention: Antisemitism is surging, and our community knows exactly why.”
“There is a direct and undeniable connection between the normalization of anti-Zionist rhetoric and the deteriorating safety environment Jews experience in their daily lives,” Hirsch added.
The rabbinic coalition, meanwhile, said in their open letter to Mamdani that his singular focus on AIPAC—an American lobbying group whose efforts are eclipsed by those of large unions and corporations—is a telltale sign that his primary target is Jewish Americans.
“When the outrage is reserved for pro-Israel advocacy, and when that advocacy is described with language of hidden money, secret control and sinister power, it gives the appearance of antisemitism,” they wrote. “Worse, it places Jews in danger. Many Jews reasonably hear echoes of longstanding antisemitic tropes.”
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