Growing up in Tel Aviv, Ofir Akunis remembers welcoming each Jewish New Year with High Holiday services led by his grandfather, a cantor. This year, the Israeli consul general in New York prepares to mark the holidays in both Israel and the Big Apple.
“I’m very optimistic because it’s a new beginning,” Akunis told JNS in an interview at his office in Midtown Manhattan. “I’m thinking about the good things.”
Those good things, to the Israeli envoy, include “the fact that the State of Israel is very strong” and that “we showed it to the whole world, but especially to our enemies who were trying to destroy us.”
“We gave them the answer,” Akunis told JNS. “If you want to destroy us, don’t mess with us.” The second good thing, he said, is the “huge” economic potential of the region.
In a wide-ranging conversation that ran about an hour, Akunis told JNS about his resolutions for the new year and concerns about Jewish safety in New York ahead of the High Holidays. (Rosh Hashanah, which runs for two days, begins at night on Sept. 11, which is also the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.)
Akunis frequently brought the conversation back to Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, of whom he has been a fierce critic. Mamdani campaigned on having Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested in New York City, and his spokeswoman said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events.
Yom Kippur is about “cheshbon nefesh,” Hebrew for an accounting of one’s soul, and the holiday of Sukkot is about “the beginning of our journey from Egypt back to our homeland,” Akunis told JNS.
“It’s always to Zion. It’s always to the land of Israel,” he said.
Mamdani has repeatedly denied the Jewish people’s historic ties to the land, according to Akunis. “This mayor, he must learn history before he’s spreading his lies about our people,” Akunis said, raising his voice in apparent anger and with his fist clenched. “How dare he? How dare he?”
The Israeli envoy described himself as “very close to the Jewish tradition” and spoke at length about his favorite holiday customs, including the Passover Seder, during which he enjoys recounting, with family, the Jewish people’s survival through generations of enemies. That ranged from the “Mamluks” and the Ottoman Empire to “now the ayatollahs” of Iran, he said.
The father of two especially enjoys Shabbat dinner every Friday night, which he frequently spends with “the hundreds, or maybe already thousands, of families here in my region,” he told JNS.
But the holidays also come as Jewish life in New York has become increasingly difficult, according to Akunis.
He described the current period as “the most challenging time to the Jewish community in New York” that he can remember since coming to the Big Apple in 1996.
“Unfortunately, it’s a different city,” he said. “You can feel the influence of the extreme Islam—the radical Islam. You can feel it everywhere.”
He described Mamdani as “the biggest liar ever, who actually served this city as a mayor,” and said that Islamists in the city “want to replace churches and synagogues, and they’re saying it, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t need to beg the American society to save ourselves from this situation,” he told JNS. “But in 10 years, it will be the new America, and we don’t want new America. We want America. We want the United States of America.”
Mamdani has been blaming the Jews for everything, from grocery stores to public transportation, according to Akunis.
“If it’s about the moon, blame the Jews,” he said. “OK, Mr. Mayor, we have enough from you. You are not a secretary of state. You are not vice president.”
‘Values based on the Bible’
Akunis had books and Zionist memorabilia scattered across his desk and office. He directed JNS to a copy of Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State,” a Tanach—or copy of Jewish Biblical scripture—and a biography of Golda Meir.
Nearby were a business card from the Indian consul general in New York, a copy of Alan Dershowitz’s “The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies and How to Refute Them with the Truth” and a charred Israeli flag salvaged from the Twin Towers.
When JNS took pictures, Akunis said to include a photo on his desk of Ariel Bibas, a 4-year-old whom Hamas terrorists kidnapped on Oct. 7 and killed. They also kidnapped and killed his mother and brother.)
Akunis said proudly that he was “the first consul general to bring the American flag to my office.”
He brought the flag “right after the mobs, the wild people, the terror-organization supporters, burned the American flag in front of the main entrance to the Israeli consulate,” he said.
“The pioneers and the people who built this city,” including Jews, Italians, Irish and immigrants from the United Kingdom, “want the American values based on the Bible,” he told JNS. “They don’t want the Sharia laws.”
The American flag fits naturally into the way that Akunis described the job of consul general. The envoy said that he sees his role as representing not only the State of Israel but “the homeland of the Jewish people.”
“America, it’s not the homeland of the Jewish people,” he told JNS. “Canada is not the homeland of the Jewish people. Australia is not the homeland of the Jewish people.”
His family came from Greece and Poland. “They never said that Poland was their homeland,” he said. “They never said that Greece was their homeland.”
“The only home—this is the homeland of the Jewish people,” Akunis told JNS. “There’s no Zionism without Zion.”
‘They’re not hiding it’
Akunis spent 15 years in the Knesset and served in several ministerial roles before becoming the consul general in New York. “It is not less important to be the consul general of the State of Israel these days than to serve my people as a minister or chaver Knesset,” he said. “Some days, even more.”
That sense of urgency, he said, stems not only from the hostility directed at Israel abroad but also from political changes taking hold in the United States.
The rise of Jew-hatred in New York City and beyond, and what Akunis called “Turkish, Qatari and Hamas propaganda,” is tied to the growing popularity of “radical” candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, he told JNS.
“The tight connections between the Jew-haters and the DSA—you can see it,” he said. “They’re saying it. They are not hiding it. You don’t need to ask me. You should ask them.”
“With all due respect, communism is not a basic value of the American economy,” he said. “Free markets—that’s what built this city.”
JNS asked if Akunis would meet with Mamdani if the mayor, in the High Holiday spirit of atonement, sought to repair relations with Israel and Jews. The Israeli envoy said that he would consider it only if Mamdani recognized Israel as the Jewish homeland and apologized for his past remarks.
“We don’t need his recognition,” Akunis said. “We know who we are.”
He also dismissed Mamdani’s absence from the Israel Day on Fifth parade and told JNS that the mayor skipping the event may have boosted turnout.
“We marched proudly,” he said. “Maybe it was a main reason that a lot of people actually marched with us—because of him.”
“We are proud Jews. We are proud Zionists. We are proud Israelis,” Akunis said. “We’ll continue to march.”
Akunis thanked the New York City Police Department and its commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, for doing a “wonderful job in protecting the Jewish community in New York.”
He told JNS that he is worried about Jewish safety, as synagogues prepare to fill for the High Holidays.
He advises Jewish New Yorkers, who worry about their safety, not to retreat.
“Be proud Jews—seculars, Orthodox, Reform, Conservatives,” he told JNS. “Raise your voices. Stand up for the truth.”
“Don’t let them spread their blood libels against us,” Akunis said. “I know that it’s difficult. I know that they own most of the social media, actually sponsored by Qataris and others.”
“But we have our minds, our mouths, our tongues,” he said. “Use it.”
Akunis plans to spend Rosh Hashanah in Israel, surrounded by family and “two heavy meals,” before returning to New York City for Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
For the new year, he has hopes and resolutions for both his country and his family.
As a diplomat, he wants “the Jewish people all around the world to unite.” As a father, he is praying that his children will continue “to be proud Jews, and then to be proud Zionists and to be proud Israelis.”
“I’m happy that they are, and I want, of course, to see the day that they will get married and build a house in Israel,” he told JNS, with a smile. “Why? This is the chain. They will be part of the Jewish journey.”
