The complicated Jewish politics story

NY Times -  Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s success in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world offered the starkest evidence yet that outspoken opposition to Israel and its government — and even questioning its existence as a Jewish state — is increasingly acceptable to broader swaths of the party, even in areas where pro-Israel Jews have long been a bedrock part of the Democratic coalition.

Some surveys showed Mr. Mamdani winning as many as one in five Jewish Democrats, with supporters including Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, who also ran for mayor and encouraged his supporters to back Mr. Mamdani through a cross-endorsement. And on Wednesday, Representative Jerrold Nadler, one of the city’s most prominent Jewish leaders, endorsed Mr. Mamdani, saying they would work together “to fight against all bigotry and hate.”

But for other Jews around the country who were already struggling with their place in the progressive movement, Mr. Mamdani’s stunning result confirmed their worst fears about the direction of the American left, fueling a sense that urgent concerns about the community’s safety are being dismissed in a movement and a city that Jews helped build.

“It’s not that they expect to be run out, or they expect that the N.Y.P.D. won’t be there to protect them,” said Deborah E. Lipstadt, who was the Biden administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. “It’s just another hit in the jaw, that these very deep-seated concerns could have been so easily brushed off by so many people.”

The politics of Israel have roiled the Democratic Party for years, accelerated by fierce debates about the war in Gaza, the rise of the far-right Netanyahu government and a running argument about when criticism of Israel veers into antisemitism, the source of much of the anxiety about Mr. Mamdani. Nearly seven in 10 Democrats now express an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 37 percent of Republicans, according to polling released by Pew Research Center this spring.

Those tensions, which President Trump has sought to exploit at every turn, have intensified within the Jewish community, too, especially along generational lines: Younger, more progressive Jews have grown increasingly critical of Israel, and impatient with older generations, whose religious identities have long been tied up with support for the Jewish state.