On Tuesday, Democratic New Yorkers went to the polls and elected a democratic socialist as their candidate for the November general election for mayor. Zohran Mamdani’s wide margin of victory—and the decisive defeat of Andrew Cuomo—shocked the political establishment and upended assumptions about who can win an election. In particular, Mamdani’s refusal to back away from his record as an unabashed pro-Palestine candidate proved that vocal opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza is not necessarily a political death knell, and in fact may be a political asset in some contexts. 

Jewish Currents staffers Peter Beinart, Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, and Alex Kane gathered in the immediate aftermath of the election to discuss Mamdani’s victory and what it might mean for the issue of Israel in US electoral politics and the New York City Jewish vote. We discussed the Jewish reaction to the win, how Mamdani spoke about Palestine on the campaign trail, what his success  means for pro-Israel groups that focus on electoral politics, and the role that City Comptroller Brad Lander and groups like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice played in the election. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles and Videos Mentioned

“The Most Detailed Map of the N.Y.C. Mayoral Primary,” Martín González Gómez, Saurabh Datar, Matthew Bloch, Andrew Fischer and Jon Huang, The New York Times

“What Zohran’s Victory Means,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook

“Zohran Mamdani’s Moral Stand,” Jewish Currents

“Colbert Talks NYC Mayoral Race With Candidates Zohran Mamdani & Brad Lander,” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview, Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, PBS

“States Don’t Have a Right to Exist. People Do,” Peter Beinart, The New York Times

“Escape from New York: Business Leaders Say They’ll Flee If Mamdani Wins,” Olivia Reingold, The Free Press

X post from Republican Jewish Coalition

X post from Betar

X post from Blake Flayton

X post from Jacob Kornbluh 

“Why Are Progressive Legislators Opposing New York’s First Anti-Settlement Bill?,” Alex Kane and Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

“Palestine Is a Proxy Fight in a Fractious DSA,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

“Jamaal Bowman’s Trip to Israel Sparks Debate in DSA Over Electoral Strategy,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

On Friday, June 13th, just days before the sixth scheduled round of US–Iran talks over the country's nuclear energy program, Israel carried out a series of punishing airstrikes in many different parts of Iran. The bombings were unprecedented in targeting Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure, and have since expanded to target Iranian state television, the energy industry, and high-rise apartment buildings. Israel’s bombing campaign has so far killed over 240 people, and has scuttled US–Iran nuclear diplomacy—at least for now. In response, Iran has launched drones and missiles at Israel, killing over 20 Israelis. Now, the escalating conflict, which has prompted thousands of Iranians to flee their homes and brought Israelis into bomb shelters, threatens to grow even deadlier as news outlets report that the Trump administration is weighing a US strike on Iran.

In this episode of On the Nose, senior reporter Alex Kane assesses Israel’s war with Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, and Ellie Geranmayeh, the Deputy Director for the European Council on Foreign Relation’s Middle East and North Africa program. They discuss the Trump administration’s position on the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war goals, and where the region might be heading in the wake of this bombing campaign.

Articles Mentioned and Further Reading

“Israel Built Its Case for War With Iran on New Intelligence. The U.S. Didn’t Buy It,” Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, and Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal

“How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel,” Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Mark Mazzetti, and Ronen Bergman, The New York Times

“America First or Israel First? Will Trump Join Netanyahu's War on Iran?” Daniel Levy, Zeteo

“Europe must act now to prevent a major war between Israel and Iran,” Ellie Geranmayeh, European Council on Foreign Relations

“Unpacking the Rift Between Trump and Netanyahu,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

“Israeli Army Estimates It Can Hit All Planned Targets in Iran Within Week, Including Fordow Nuclear Site,” Yaniv Kubovich, Haaretz

This episode of On the Nose comes from a live Zoom conversation between associate editor Mari Cohen and Rabbi Andrue Kahn in February, in which they discussed the anti-nationalist tradition of the American Reform movement and the American Council for Judaism (ACJ), the anti-Zionist organization created by Reform rabbis in 1942. Kahn, the executive director of a newly revived ACJ, answers questions about the Reform movement’s roots in German Jewish emancipation, its attempts to offer a religious paradigm appealing to American Jews, and why early leaders eschewed Zionism. They also discuss early Reform anti-Zionists’ racial politics, how some ACJ leaders developed a concern for Palestinian rights, and what a revived ACJ might offer American Jews today, in a world where official Reform Judaism has long been Zionist. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned 

“The Pittsburgh Platform” 

“The Columbus Platform” 

“Declaration Adopted by the Biltmore Conference” 

“Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the American Racial Order,” Matthew Berkman, American Jewish History 

Our Palestine Question by Geoffrey Levin

The Threshold of Dissent by Marjorie Feld

“A Conversation with Professor Matt Berkman,” American Council for Judaism 

“A Reconstructionist Reckoning,” Shane Burley, Jewish Currents 

Last year saw the release of Kneecap, a fictionalized account of the real-life West Belfast-based Irish language rap group of the same name. The group is know for their bombastic, irreverent take on politics in the North of Ireland and their advocacy for the Irish language, which faced centuries of suppression under British colonial rule. Longtime advocates for Palestine, Kneecap has made headlines recently for their on-stage statements at Coachella in support of Gaza. Last week, UK prosecutors charged band member Mo Chara with a terrorism-related offense for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a show and chanting in support of Hezbollah and Hamas—part of a global trend in which pro-Palestinian speech is conflated with material support for terror. (The band has released a series of statements distancing themselves from calls for violence against civilians and redirecting attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.) 

This episode of On the Nose, hosted by contributing writer Rebecca Pierce, uses the Kneecap film as a jumping-off point for discussing the relationship between language reclamation, nationalism, and resistance. Joining her is scholar of Sephardic studies and Ladino speaker Devin Naar, and Yiddish-language musicians and culture workers Isabel Frey and Ira Temple. They discuss Kneecap’s advocacy for speaking Irish, the place of music and language in both national and decolonial movements, and the connections between such movements and Jewish efforts to preserve Ladino and Yiddish. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles and Social Media Posts Mentioned

Di fliendeke pave, Isabel Frey

Ira Temple

Ya Ghorbati, Laura Elkeslassy

“Zog nit keyn mol,” Yiddish partisan song

Kneecap speaking out on anti-immigrant riots in Belfast

“How Irish diplomats reacted to Bernadette Devlin's 1969 US tour,” Melissa Baird, RTE

Kneecap on sectarianism

On Wednesday night, two Israeli embassy aides—30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky and 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim—were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting an event for young diplomats.  The suspect, 30-year-old Chicago resident Elias Rodriguez, was immediately arrested. Upon being taken into custody, he chanted “free Palestine,” according to video of the scene; elsewhere, in a manifesto attributed to him, he allegedly wrote “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.” Immediately, politicians from across the political spectrum and mainstream Jewish groups responded by condemning the killings as a specifically antisemitic act, with some blaming the Palestine solidarity movement for inciting violence. 

In a rapid response podcast, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel discussed the shootings with assistant editor Mari Cohen, senior reporter Alex Kane, and contributing editor and historian Ben Ratskoff. They parsed the media consensus that this was primarily an antisemitic attack, the response from Israeli politicians, the history of diplomat assassinations, and more.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles and Social Media Posts Mentioned

X post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto,” Ken Klippenstein, Substack

“Capital Jewish Museum shooting suspect killed 2 ‘for Gaza.’ His victims were peace advocates,” Louis Keene, The Forward 

“Israel fires 'warning shots' near diplomats in West Bank,” Adam Durbin, BBC News

“How to Oppose Pro-Palestinian Antisemitism,” Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook 

“Far-right ministers blame Yair Golan for shooting of Israeli embassy staffers,” Sam Sokol, Times of Israel

“How a Jewish Teenager Went From Refugee to Assassin to Puppet of Nazi Propaganda,” Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian

“Recentering Palestine, reclaiming the movement,” Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition, Columbia Daily Spectator 

“Argov denounces war on Lebanon,” JTA

X post by Israeli opposition leader Yair Golan  

Segment on soccer riots in Amsterdam, Democracy Now

In April, Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the United States in his first-ever trip to the country as a government official. Many Jewish groups refused to meet with Ben-Gvir, a follower of Meir Kahane whose extremism stands out even in an Israeli political scene awash in anti-Palestinian racism. But Ben-Gvir was welcomed by Chabad rabbis at Yale in New Haven, in South Florida, as well as at 770 Eastern Parkway, the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The latter appearance sparked protests outside 770, which were met with violence by Chabadniks. In particular, a mob chanting “Death to Arabs” chased a female passerby for several blocks, kicking, spitting, and throwing objects at her. Other videos showed Chabadniks lighting a keffiyeh on fire, shoving and kicking members of the Hasidic anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, and bloodying a female protester (herself a Jewish Israeli). 

To discuss Chabad’s alignment with Ben-Gvir, its long-standing antipathy to leftist movements, and its uneasy relations within Crown Heights, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel spoke with Jewish studies scholars Shaul Magid and Hadas Binyamini. They discuss Chabad’s historic anti-Zionism, the quasi-Zionist cultural shifts that have solidified after October 7th, and the tensions the movement is currently navigating between its outreach orientation and its increasingly exclusionary politics.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:

The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, David Berger

“Israel’s Class War Conservatives,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents 

“The three-decade saga that led to the Crown Heights tunnels,” Chananya Groner, The Guardian

“The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin,” Ben Schreckinger, Politico

Letter to Hitler from the German Free Association for the Interests of Orthodox Jewry, 1933

“Lubavitcher Hassidim Oppose Public Demonstrations on Behalf of Soviet Jews,” JTA

“The New Heimish Populism,” Joshua Leifer, Jewish Currents

Race and Reli­gion Among the Cho­sen Peo­ples of Crown Heights, Henry Goldschmidt

“The Passion of 964 Park Place,” Ari Brostoff, Jewish Currents

In September 2024, an Israeli sniper shot and killed Turkish American human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi outside of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Her murder was a devastating example of a sharp uptick in military and settler violence against both Palestinian residents and the international and Israeli activists who work with them. For years, solidarity activists such as Eygi have responded to the violent reality in the West Bank by physically accompanying Palestininans in the hopes that their “protective presence” will serve as a buffer to prevent attacks. This strategy has received heightened attention thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which features Palestinians resisting colonialism in the villages of Masafer Yatta, and Israelis engaging in protective presence with them. 

For those engaged in solidarity work in the West Bank, this moment of increased violence has amplified ever-present moral questions: What is my responsibility to intervene when someone else is in danger? How much risk must I take upon myself to try and protect my Palestinian comrades? And to what extent must I recruit others to join me in taking that risk? In this chevruta, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein explores these quandaries with Jewish Currents assistant editor Maya Rosen. As a long-time protective presence activist, Rosen is regularly weighing the danger that she and the activists she recruits will take on in the course of their work: How can she adequately prepare people without scaring them off? And how can she communicate the rewards of the work alongside the risks? Bernstein and Rosen discuss these questions through the lens of three texts—two Talmudic texts, and one Holocaust-era responsum—with the aim of helping those who are attempting to share the burden of serious risk find pathways to greater collective courage.

This podcast is part of our chevruta column, named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents matches leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar leads them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column includes a written conversation, podcast, and study guide. You can find the column based on this conversation here, and a study guide here.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” 

Articles Mentioned:

All Jewish sources are cited in the study guide, linked above

“‘It was revenge for our movie’: Oscar winner says soldiers helped settlers attack him in West Bank,” Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian

“Justice for Ayşenur Eygi: Family of U.S. Citizen Killed by Israel Meets with Blinken Demanding Probe,” Democracy Now!

“Shocking spike in use of unlawful lethal force by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank,” Amnesty International

“Co-Resistance at a Crossroads,” Maya Rosen, Jewish Currents

From the ICE arrest and detention of pro-Palestinian organizers to the mass revocation of student visas to the deportation of hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, the Trump administration’s assault on noncitizens has been as headline-grabbing as it has been brutal. But even though the sheer speed and spectacle of the offensive makes it appear new, many of the legal and enforcement tools at play are old, with the administration drawing on Cold War-era laws, War on Terror-era agencies, and Obama- and Biden-era precedents. In this episode of On the Nose, we speak with the deportation defense lawyer Sophia Elena Gurulé and immigration reporter Tanvi Misra about the ongoing clampdowns, where they are following precedents and where they are setting them, and the stakes of understanding these historical continuities.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:

“Mapping Who Lives in Border Patrol’s ‘100-Mile Zone,’” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg

“The Origins of American Immigration Detention,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg

“Civil War-Era Parallels to the Sanctuary City Movement,” Tanvi Misra, Bloomberg

“If You Build It, ICE Will Fill It: The Link Between Detention Capacity and ICE Arrests,” Detention Watch

“Trump says he wants to deport US citizens to El Salvador,” Gaby Del Valle, The Verge

Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia

Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah

In October 2024, Zohran Mamdani launched his New York City mayoral campaign in relative obscurity. Half a year later, excitement about the state assemblymember from Queens is palpable. Mamdani, whose campaign is focused on housing justice and transit affordability, is the first in the race to hit its fundraising cap, raising $8 million dollars from more than 17,000 donors. A member of the Democratic Socialist of America, he boasts over 15,000 volunteer canvassers. Mamadani is now polling in second place, behind Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor who resigned in disgrace following sexual harassment allegations. 

Meanwhile, Cuomo, who began a lackluster second act in Israel advocacy following his resignation from office, is attempting to make Israel and antisemitism central issues in the campaign. In a speech earlier this month at a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he blasted Mamdani, as well as fellow competitors Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams, for being insufficiently supportive of Israel, while asserting that anti-Zionism is unequivocally antisemitism. He also zeroed in on Mamdani’s “Not On Our Dime” legislation, which targets charities funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Mamdani has continued to stress an adherence to international law, and a commitment to the principle of the equality of all human life. 

As the mayoral race enters its final months, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart interviewed Mamdani in a conversation that first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack. They discussed how Israel/Palestine is making its way into New York politics, how Mamdani would stand up to President Trump, and his detailed plan for public safety. Jewish Currents is a non-profit organization and does not endorse candidates for office. We hope that our listeners in New York City will vote in the primary on June 24th.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).” 

FURTHER READING:

“Cuomo’s ‘most important issue,’” Jeff Coltin, Nick Reisman, and Emily Ngo, Politico

“Cuomo and Mamdani gain ground as Democratic primary turns into two-person race,” Adam Daly, amNY

“Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani Wants to End Columbia and NYU’s Tax-Exempt Status,” Sarah Wexler, Jacobin

“Feds seized $80 million in FEMA funds given to NYC to house migrants, city comptroller says,” Jennifer Bisram, CBS News

“Migrant family swept up by ICE allowed to return home,” Brian Mann, NPR

Zohran Mamdani’s public safety plan

In a recent article in Jewish Currents, Jon Danforth-Appell proposes that the Jewish left is operating under a paradigm of what he calls “Zionist realism.” This idea draws on theorist Mark Fisher’s notion of “capitalist realism,” which describes the way capitalism makes it impossible to imagine alternative world structures; Zionist realism, in Danforth-Appell’s conception, similarly makes it difficult for Jews to separate from a received sense of Jewish collectivity, and imagine alternative futures. Danforth-Appell writes that particularist Jewish organizing, typified by the slogan “Not in Our Name,” reinforces a picture of Jews as a monolith, while contributing to an overemphasis on Jewish culpability for Israel’s actions. This approach may underemphasize “material processes of capital and geopolitics,” like the weapons industry’s bottom line and American interests in the Middle East. “What ultimately matters is not an abstract notion of Zionism as a totalizing spiritual contaminant upon the Jewish people,” he writes, “but the ways in which American Jews, alongside all other Americans, hold multiple kinds of material relationships to Israel.”

In the episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and associate editor Mari Cohen talk with Danforth-Appell about his article and the questions it raises. Even given the diversity among Jews, can we abandon collective complicity while so many Jews materially support Zionism? Why aren’t we seeing more mass anti-war organizing, where people can show up as Americans? And what are the limits of a Jewish politics of collective complicity? 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:

“Against Zionist Realism,” Jon Danforth-Appell, Jewish Currents

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher

“Canary Mission’s Newest Funders,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sarah Ahmed

“Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents