If elected governor of New York, Bruce Blakeman plans to muzzle New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to prevent him from making anti-Israel statements, the Republican and Nassau County executive told JNS in a video interview on Tuesday.
“I wouldn’t let Zohran Mamdani get away with the virulent antisemitic comments he’s made,” said Blakeman, who is Jewish. “I would tell him to stop or, if he didn’t, take action against him, which the governor has the power to do.”
Blakeman is the first Jewish executive of Nassau County, a large section of Long Island that begins at the border of Queens.
Had he been governor of New York during the anti-Israel encampment and building takeover at Columbia University in 2024, he “would have told the mayor to take control of the situation or I would,” Blakeman told JNS.
“I would not allow the tent camps, not allow acts of harassment or intimidation against Jewish students,” he said. “I would have brought in state police and National Guard, and it would have been over immediately.”
Blakeman took a similar approach when asked about 100 anti-Israel protesters, who gathered outside an Israeli real estate event at Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst in March 2024.
“I had tanks, helicopters, SWAT teams, K-9 units,” he told JNS. “You aren’t getting away with blocking roads or committing violent acts against Jewish people.”
“I respect the right to free speech, but when you harass people or try to storm a synagogue, that’s a crime,” he said,
Blakeman has become increasingly religiously observant in recent years, he told JNS.
He and his Israeli-American wife, Segal Magori Blakeman, keep a kosher kitchen at their home in Atlantic Beach, and he abstains from eating pork and shellfish. A member of the Jewish Center of Atlantic Beach, a
Modern Orthodox synagogue, he goes to Shabbat morning services twice monthly on average, he told JNS.
“Of course on the holidays,” including this coming Saturday night for the Selichot service, he said.
Blakeman told JNS that his favorite holiday is Passover, “because it involves eating and drinking.” (He directed JNS to “call me Bruce or Baruch,” his Hebrew name.)
He also begins every day by praying for about 20 minutes before breakfast—a practice he began when he met his wife at a political event 13 years ago, but did so inconsistently.
“Now I won’t start my day unless I pray to Hashem every single day,” he told JNS, using the Hebrew term for God.
Rather than a regular morning Jewish service, “I say prayers that are meaningful to me,” he said. “For the well-being of my family, for ill or injured friends and family. I have a list of about 300 people I pray for every day.”
Blakeman added that his wife, who is a family court judge, “has been instrumental in me becoming more observant.”
“It’s something that makes me much happier, gives me more balance in my life,” he told JNS.
Blakeman plans to have Rosh Hashanah dinner with family and friends, including their three children—a son he has with first wife Nancy Shevell, who is now married to Paul McCartney—and twin 28-year olds, who Segal brought into the marriage.
“I don’t know if it will be at our house or our dear friends in Kings Point,” he said. “I leave that up to my wife. I go where I’m told.”
