By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Tuesday’s election of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s next mayor prompted immediate sharp reactions from the Anti-Defamation League and from the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Later on Wednesday, The Democratic Majority for Israel also made its reaction known.
The ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt issued the following statement:
In light of Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s long, disturbing record on issues of deep concern to the Jewish community, we will approach the next four years with resolve. We expect the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world to stand unequivocally against antisemitism in all its varied forms and support all of its Jewish residents just as he would all other constituents.
“In the months ahead, we will hold the Mamdani Administration to this basic standard, and ADL will be relentless and unyielding in our work to ensure the safety and security of all Jewish New Yorkers. We will neither compromise nor relent in our pursuit of our core purpose, to protect the Jewish people.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition released this statement:
It’s official. Zohran Mamdani is the face of the Democratic Party now. Democratic “leaders”, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Governor Kathy Hochul, have handed their party over to what was once the radical leftwing fringe.
This is a deeply distressing result for New Yorkers, particularly Jewish New Yorkers, but in fact this election will affect all of us. The national Democratic Party owns this election and all its results, and voters across the country will hold them accountable when they vote in 2026 and 2028.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: There is only ONE party in this country fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, and it is the Republican Party.
While Republicans loudly condemn antisemitism, Democrats have shamefully endorsed and elected an antisemite to run the largest city in America with the largest number of Jews in the country.”
In Zohran Mamdani, New Yorkers will now have a mayor who will ruin their economy, their education system, and their transportation system with communist fantasy policies.
They will have a mayor who took money from terror-supporting Islamist organizations for his campaign, who is virulently anti-capitalism, anti-police, and anti-Israel, and who will not lift a finger to protect Jewish New Yorkers from the “globalize the intifada” crowd.
This is a dark day for the City of New York, and the Democrats own all of it.
A third message came from the Democratic Majority for Israel:
“While we congratulate Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, we urge him to prioritize fulfilling his campaign promises to bring down costs, not foreign policy issues that are unrelated to the everyday lives of most New Yorkers. As he prepares to take office, we expect him to uphold his commitments to New York’s Jewish community — including increasing funding for hate-crime prevention and working not only to ‘protect’ Jewish New Yorkers but to ‘celebrate and cherish them.’ We urge him to forcefully condemn violent rhetoric or actions targeted at the Jewish community.”
Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York City. In his victory speech, Mamdani promised to combat both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
In other races across the country, the SDJW spotlight was on Jewish and Muslim candidates.
In Virginia’s race for lieutenant governor, Democrat Gazala Hashmi became that state’s first Muslim candidate to win statewide office.
In the race for mayor of Annapolis, Maryland’s capital city, Democrat Jared Littmann held a lead over Republican Robert O’Shea, who conceded Littmann’s victory. However, 2,600 mail-in ballots remained to be counted Tuesday night in that race.
In the 15-candidate race for Minneapolis mayor, no candidate received over 50 percent of the vote. The top two finishers, Incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota State Sen. Omer Fateh, thus will proceed to the next phase of Minneapolis’ ranked-choice election.
The ranked-choice system says if no candidate wins a majority, then if Frey or Fateh appear as second choices on voters’ ballots, those votes will be added to the original tally. If still no one attains a majority, then voters’ third choices will be added, until one candidate’s vote tally exceeds 50 percent.
Frey is Jewish and Fateh is Muslim.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.