On Sunday, just as a nor’easter began to unleash on Brooklyn, a brunette leaped over a puddle to catch Zohran Mamdani walking into Congregation Beth Elohim.
“BOOOOOOOO!” she yelled before throwing up two middle fingers with nails adorned with chipped purple polish.
Behind a police barricade, about three dozen protesters sang “Oseh Shalom,” a Jewish prayer for peace, as the front-runner in New York City’s mayoral race hurried from a black Chevrolet Suburban into the synagogue’s social hall. The protesters were not anti-Israel demonstrators—a near-nightly scene over these past two years, as many Jewish spaces became targets for anti-Israel ire. Quite the opposite. At least half of the protesters were members of Beth Elohim, which had decided to host Mamdani for a town hall–style event before next month’s mayoral election.
This scene is where these past two years have left the American Jewry: divided between those who feel like progressivism is the answer to rising antisemitism, and those who feel like the only path forward is to abandon the left, just as it abandoned Israel.
No person embodies that split more than Zohran Mamdani, who has divided the Jewish community—in New York and beyond.
