Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City who is a frequent and harsh critic of the Jewish state, told a version of the Passover story that cropped out the ultimate destination of the Israelites—the Holy Land—at a “postmodern” seder at City Winery in Manhattan on Monday.
“This week across our city, Jewish New Yorkers will gather with family and friends, neighbors and strangers around the seder table. Hands will be washed in silence, karpas will be dipped and in the fourth step of the seder, the middle matzah will be broken,” he said. “The larger half, the afikomen, will be set aside for later in the evening. But over the course of the night, as voices both young and old tell the story of Passover, a story of liberation from enslavement, they will do so over the broken middle matzah, a physical reminder of the ruptures that have defined so much of Jewish history, a physical reminder of how much of our world today remains broken and incomplete.”
“For too many in our city, the dream of liberation has drifted out of reach. The affordability crisis deprives so many of dignity and possibility,” the mayor added, per a transcript that his office released. “Too many of our neighbors cannot afford a home to raise their families in, cannot keep up with the rising costs of groceries or child care and can no longer afford to stay in the city that they love. The rising tide of antisemitism has caused enormous pain for so many Jewish New Yorkers.”
The mayor, whose spokeswoman said that Jewish houses of worship violate international law when they host pro-Israel events, said at the event that “synagogues that once felt like sanctuaries now require armed protection” and that “ICE is enormous cruelty—I say it because we know that if there was complete decorum anywhere that we were, we would have to ask ourselves if we had left the city that we love.”
The Torah makes clear repeatedly that the Exodus was both about taking the Israelites out of Egypt and directing them to the Holy Land as a final destination. But Mamdani’s telling of the story culminated in Jewish-back relations in the United States.
“Liberation was not realized when Moses demanded, ‘Let my people go,’ nor was it delivered when God intervened with the plagues,” he said. “Liberation was attained when the Jewish people came together to escape their enslavement in Egypt, neighbor helping neighbor, protecting one another and sharing what little they had.”
“When I think of those practices of solidarity, liberation, repair, I think of the legacy of Jewish New Yorkers, Jewish New Yorkers who have long stood on the front lines of the civil rights movement, like Henry Moskowitz, founder of the NAACP, Rabbi Heschel, who marched from Selma alongside Dr. King,” he said, of Abraham Joshua Heschel.
The event, hosted by City Winery founder and CEO Michael Dorf, also included New York City Council speaker Julie Menin, city comptroller Mark Levine and former comptroller and congressional candidate Brad Lander, who like Mamdani is a harsh critic of the Jewish state. Phylisa Wisdom, Mamdani’s controversial pick to run the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, also attended, as did Morris Katz, an adviser to Mamdani and former CNN host Don Lemon, who is accused of disrupting a church service during a protest against federal immigration enforcement.
Photos released by the mayor’s office and the City Council suggested that in lieu of a traditional seder plate, guests were offered celery and carrots.
The Israeli American comedian Modi Rosenfeld posted on Instagram prior to the event that “we were not told Mamdani was participating in this event until today.” Writing on Instagram, the performer who goes by Modi wrote “This is why we’re losing” and “Modi will no longer be attending.”
