Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, criticized filmmaker Steven Spielberg for reportedly meeting privately with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing that the visit legitimized a person who has gone out of his way to make his anti-Israel views known.
Klein told JNS that Spielberg’s sit-down should have been followed by a public statement from the director.
“He’s got a big platform,” Klein said. “He talks about the Holocaust, and we’re worried that we have a situation where that could happen again. And you’ve got a guy speaking almost like the Nazis spoke in the ’30s, and he’s meeting with him and not condemning him.”
Spielberg’s meeting on Jan. 5 with the new mayor followed a Jan. 2 statement from several major Jewish organizations, including the UJA-Federation of New York, JCRC-NY, ADL New York/New Jersey, AJC New York, Agudath Israel of America, the Orthodox Union and the New York Board of Rabbis, responding to Mamdani’s early moves on city policy related to antisemitism and Israel.
Klein called the statement “weak” and “a shameful letter of frightened, pathetic Jews,” noting that “the word condemnation doesn’t appear there. The word criticize doesn’t appear there.”
JNS sought comment on Spielberg’s meeting from all the Jewish groups that signed the statement, but only Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, responded.
Potasnik told JNS that “following the meeting with Steven Spielberg, who has been outspoken on the scourge of rising antisemitism, I hope that the mayor will issue a clear, unequivocal statement condemning antisemitism as found in the phrase, ‘Globalize the intifada.’”
Klein said he is not surprised that only one group responded: “You will not get major left-wing Jewish groups to be criticizing a major figure on the left like Spielberg.”
