AMERICA: JEWS AT WORK: What issues are Jewish voters thinking about as New York City’s mayoral campaign gets u nderway?
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In about six months, New York City will almost certainly choose its next mayor in the Democratic primary — and Jewish issues could take center stage in the campaign.
The campaign for the June 2024 primary — which is the competitive race in this solidly blue city — features multiple Jewish candidates. But all of the hopefuls may be called upon to address issues of Jewish concern, from street protests about the Israel-Hamas war to public funding for haredi Orthodox yeshivas.
New York City is home to roughly 1 million Jews. And given how news about Israel and Gaza has dominated the headlines and activist spaces over the past year-plus, non-Jewish New Yorkers may pay some attention to those issues, too.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of focus, perhaps even disproportionate focus, on ‘Jewish issues.’ That’s happening at the national level. It’s certainly going to be happening here in the city,” Phylisa Wisdom, the head of New York Jewish Agenda, a liberal advocacy group, said.
“Of course, Jewish voters are focused on issues that impact us, but I think our neighbors are [focused on them] in this election as well, in a way that is perhaps unusual,” she said.
Here’s a rundown of the Jewish issues that could feature in the 2025 mayoral election.
Street protests against Israel
Pro-Palestinian street protests represented one of the clearest ways in which issues of Jewish concern spilled over into the city’s general consciousness.
Rallies have rocked the city since Oct. 7, 2023, shutting down major thoroughfares, disrupting holiday events and targeting institutions without a direct connection to Israel, such as the Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital and the Brooklyn Museum. They have also taken place at colleges and public high schools.
The NYPD said in early October that there had been more than 4,000 street protests over the past year, though they did not say how many related to the war in Gaza. That number also includes some large pro-Israel protests as well.
Sara Forman, the head of the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel political group, said her organization had conducted polling of Jewish voters ahead of the 2024 state assembly races. That polling, done in June, shortly after the encampment protest at Columbia University ended with the occupation of a building and arrests, showed “how terrible the psychological impact of the protests was.”
“People felt vulnerable, they felt unsafe,” she said. “Almost a third of New York Jewish voters felt that New York wasn’t a safe haven for Jews anymore.”
Forman added that the survey was specific to the time it was conducted — about a year before the Democratic primary. The pace and scale of demonstrations has since slowed.
Masking laws
Some New York legislators have sought to combat the protests and associated acts of vandalism with legislation banning masking, which police say makes it harder to prosecute crimes. Long Island’s Nassau County passed a masking ban in response to anti-Israel protests in August, and Jewish groups and legislators are pushing for an anti-masking law at the state level, an idea Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for reelection, has endorsed.
The state’s anti-masking law was on the books since the mid-1800s but was repealed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the push to reinstate the law is at the state level, Jewish voters will likely want to know where candidates stand on the issue, Forman said. The legislation came back into focus this week after a masked assassin gunned down UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Wednesday.
“It’s clear that people won’t be happy with candidates who oppose reinstating the mask [ban], as they’re not prioritizing the safety of New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers,” said Yaacov Behrman, the head of the Jewish Future Alliance, a group encouraging the increasing voter turnout in Crown Heights, the home base of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.
Behrman said candidates who oppose the ban would likely be perceived as weak on crime and unpopular anyway in his neighborhood. Still, the issue could influence turnout, a key factor for his community in the election, he said.
Progressive Jews may take a different approach. Alicia Singham Goodwin, the political director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a leftist group in the city that has participated in pro-Palestinian rallies and come out against anti-masking legislation, called the measure “anti-protest, anti-free speech.”
“We at JFREJ certainly want a mayor who will protect our right to protest, who will protect our freedom of speech, who will prioritize the functions of democracy that we rely on to get change,” she said. “And so I think an antagonism towards protesters is not productive.”
Hate crimes and antisemitism
Hate crimes have spiked in the city since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, with the number of antisemitic crimes topping the list every month.
Lawmakers have also introduced legislation to combat the surge. At the state level, legislators passed a law criminalizing the forcible removal of someone else’s kippah. Hochul said earlier this year that she would back legislation expanding the number of crimes eligible for hate crimes prosecution, but the bill has not yet passed.
The only candidate to have laid out a specific policy on fighting antisemitism, corporate attorney Jim Walden, said he would urge the city council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, review curricula at schools for bias related to Israel, and demand protest organizers state whether a foreign group is paying for the event.
NYJA’s Wisdom said liberal Jews take the issue seriously and will likely take a nuanced approach amid concerns about politicians using charges of antisemitism as an excuse to penalize institutions such as universities and nonprofits.
“We’re looking for a serious intention to combat antisemitism and also to do so from a place of nuance, and not fall into the trap of weaponizing antisemitism to go after liberal institutions and organizations,” she said.
Singham Goodwin said progressive Jews would support candidates who use “genuine compassion and understanding” to combat antisemitism through programs like education and mental health services rather than law enforcement.
“We’re looking for candidates who take public safety actually seriously and don’t just say, ‘I would write the NYPD a blank check to do whatever they want,’” she said.
Public funding of yeshivas
In past mayoral races, candidates have courted the support of the city’s Hasidic communities, which tend to vote in blocs with the potential to sway the primary. Adams received the endorsement of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg en route to winning Gracie Mansion in 2021.
The year after that election, a series of articles in The New York Times scrutinized public funding of haredi Orthodox yeshivas that, according to the articles, fell far short of state secular education requirements. The yeshiva education system is a priority for haredi voters, where the schools are a linchpin of the community.
Adams has spoken in favor of the system in the past, saying the city needs to “learn what you are doing in the yeshivas to improve education.”
“If the mayor runs, we know he’s very pro-yeshiva education,” Behrman said. “If some of his opponents are anti-yeshiva education, I think it would drive more turnout” in Crown Heights.
Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to unseat Adams, called for more oversight of yeshivas prior to his mayoral campaign. “That so many young people have been denied the necessary skills they need to succeed in the higher educational opportunities, jobs, and diverse cultural and civic life of our city is a tragedy,” he said.
Some regulations mandating secular education at yeshivas will come into force in the coming year, which may return focus on the issue.
“I do think liberal Jewish New Yorkers certainly want a mayor who is following the law and is committed to, as the law says, that kids are required to get a certain level of secular education, in particular when state and city funding is involved,” Wisdom said.
Education at the city’s public schools, which the mayor oversees, could also relate to Jewish concerns. Public schools have seen protests against Israel, and the city has run programs to teach students about antisemitism. Diversity initiatives at the schools could also impact how they address bias against Jews.
Israel
While the mayor is not involved in foreign policy, being a supporter of the country has long appeared to be a prerequisite for the job: Every single New York City mayor dating back to Vincent Impellitteri in 1951 has visited the country while in office. (William O’Dwyer, who was in office when Israel was established in 1948, also supported the country’s establishment and appears to have visited after his term ended.)
This year, a faction of the Democratic base actively opposes Israel. The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, has backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement targeting Israel. The group also backed an anti-Israel protest a day after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, a rally that drew widespread condemnation.
“Anybody that has a dalliance with the DSA is going to have to say they share those beliefs so I certainly think Israel will be brought up,” Forman said.
The “Not On Our Dime” act, legislation backed by the party, may also become a campaign issue. The bill aims to block New York nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Pro-Israel critics say the bill’s broad scope would target Jewish organizations, snarl charity work by forcing an onerous vetting process, and hamper humanitarian groups from providing essential services.
Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who introduced the bill, is running for mayor as a Democratic Socialist. His website touts his efforts to “bar charities from funding illegal Israeli settlements.” JFREJ has come out in support of the Not On Our Dime Act and Democratic Socialist candidates in the race.
“What JFREJ members are looking for and what those types of Jewish voters are looking for is candidates who are going to be leaders who express empathy with Palestinians alongside the empathy we expect and need them to express for Israelis and Jews,” Singham Goodwin said.
Behrman said anti-Israel positions could fuel antisemitism. “There are elected officials who hold anti-Israel positions that are deeply concerning to the Jewish community. When Israel is unjustly attacked, it almost always leads to an increase in violence against Jews,” Behrman said.
The big picture
Jewish activists said that, while there are issues specific to the community, Jews are also concerned with the bread and butter issues that non-Jewish New Yorkers are concerned with, such as crime and housing.
“When you think about the Jewish community as a voting community, we’re regular New Yorkers just like everyone else,” Forman said. “We have the same concerns that everyone else shares.”
Wisdom agrees. “What I’m hearing from liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers is that when it comes to the mayor, they’re really thinking more about public education, K-12, antisemitism, migrants, criminal justice reform,” she said.
The race is also still in its early stages and the issues will likely change by the time of the vote.
“Everything is speculation at this point,” Forman said.
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