Jewish American Heritage Month was celebrated by New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a reception he hosted, with food supervised by Tarnopol Kashrus services, at Gracie Mansion on May 18. There were speeches galore. The mayor took advantage of the event to announce that he will be adding $26 million in funding to prevent hate crimes to his proposed 2027 fiscal year budget.
Of course, many believe that if Mamdani had come out more strongly against anti-Jewish groups these past few months, such as those threatening and demonstrating outside synagogues, as well as reduced his unrepentant anti-Israel statements and sentiments (including a no-show at the Israel Day Parade), perhaps much of the sum he is now allotting might not have to be expended at all.
Mostly boycotted by major Jewish organizations, the reception included the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice; the progressive New Jewish Agenda; and Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader in the Satmar Chassidic community. Bend the Arc, the social-justice activist group represented by its CEO Jamie Beran, among others, was a co-sponsor of the event.
The progressive Rabbi Abbey Chava Stein was there, too. Another rabbi shared a belly laugh with the mayor. The drink selection was limited to Herzog wine from California (nothing from the Shiloh or Psagot wineries).
In related news, a Jewish Heritage reception held by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was also heavily populated by non-Zionists.
In a post on X, Stein translated an observation from Der Blatt, the widely read Yiddish weekly news sheet of the Rav Aharon (not Rav Zevulon) Satmar branch, that read: “Zionist organizations and their followers throw childish ‘tantrum’ seeing that their dream to paint Mamdani as antisemitic falls apart” and “Mayor Mamdani promises the leading New York Jewish activists to continue his support of the ‘heimish’ [aka, ultra-Orthodox] community.”
I don’t know if J Street was invited or participated. That organization did, however, achieve headline status after Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, spoke of its activities during a National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism gathering at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., just one day later on May 19.
Referring to its advocacy for an arms embargo to Israel, Leiter bluntly stated: “The worst thing about J Street is it’s duplicitous. How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that’s fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?”
But what drew attention was his next line: “They are like a cancer in the heart of the Jewish community.”
What we are witnessing in this recent alignment of political forces is the formation of—or better, the attempt at—a new Jewish establishment. The interrelations, mutual assistance (for example, the catering came from a Satmar-supervised provider), reciprocal promotions and collaborative support lead to a synergistic effect of empowerment.
Moreover, the Jewish groups and individual Jews engaged in this effort—in the works for some two decades now—are being abetted in their new status reinforcement by forces that are essentially inimical to Jewish communal existence, in general, and fundamental principles of Jewish life, in particular.
The Democratic Socialists are openly hostile to Israel, as even the American Jewish Committee knows. The Satmar Chassidic sect in Kiryas Joel in Upstate New York and the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., remains staunchly anti-Zionist. The progressive Jewish groups are, too.
Another factor to take into account is that, after 50 years of championing by most of the Jewish establishment that Israel needs to yield up Judea and Samaria to maintain a Jewish majority and democratic character, American Jewry has a demographic problem of its own.
As Haaretz published, American Jewry’s segments with economic and financial power, and political and cultural influence, are in a “demographic decline.” The overall Jewish birthrate of 1.5 children per adult indicates a replacement-rate inability. The exception of 3.3 on average for the Orthodox is a bit more upbeat. There’s an even higher rate for the Chassidic community, though some sects stand against the formation of the modern-day State of Israel and remain ambivalent on the subject of Zionism, similar to how they felt on the eve of the Holocaust.
Adding to all that intermarriage and conversion to other faiths, what American Jews face is a distinct demographic decline for the non-Orthodox. I need to point out that even many of those remaining Jews who claim to be Jewish do so out of their liberal and cultural politics—not through their religious identity, observance level and or knowledge about their heritage.
Bundists, Communists and anti-Zionist rabbis doomed European Jewry to mass slaughter prior to 1939. What they intend upon doing now is to undercut traditional Jewish communal structures and power. Their anti-Zionism is a replacement-theory charade, substituting a much-distilled Judaism that lacks its national identity character and bolsters a collapse of the Jewish communal framework.
Their danger is real.
