‘Disgusting and Heartbreaking’: Mamdani Condemns Anti-Semitic Vandalism At NYC Yeshiva

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

New York City’s new mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, condemned anti-Semitic graffiti being scrawled on a Brooklyn Yeshiva on Wednesday, the morning after his resounding election victory.

Mamdani replied to a post showing a Swastika spray-painted on the building that was captioned, “My community’s yeshiva (Jewish day school) in Brooklyn, where I taught years ago.” He wrote in reply, “This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city. As Mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”

Mamdani’s campaign was deeply contentious in New York City and nationally, as anti-Semitism and hostile debates over the Israel-Hamas war have roiled American politics on both the left and right.

The weekend before the election, prominent Reform Rabbi Angela Buchdahl gave a sermon at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue and put Mamdani on blast. “Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism,” Buchdahl said, adding:

His shocking 2023 accusation—”When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF”—crosses the line clearly into antisemitism, not only demonizing Israelis, but echoing the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews across the world are the root cause of our problems here. His false claims of genocide, his reluctance to label Hamas a terrorist organization, his unwillingness to condemn phrases like “globalize the Intifada,” and absolute opposition to Israel as a Jewish state contributes to an atmosphere of denigration and ostracization of Jewish people everywhere.

Mamdani repeatedly vowed to combat both anti-Semitism and rising Islamophobia during his campaign, while fiercely criticizing Israel and at one point vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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