An American Israeli heckler accused Mayor Zohran Mamdani of ignoring rising antisemitism in the city while he visited a Jewish store in Brooklyn on Wednesday.
Stephanie Benshimol, a self-described “Boss Momma American Israeli Zionist” and the founder of United Zionists, berated Hizzoner for visiting Eichler’s, a Judaica store in Borough Park, before the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah next week.
“Hey, it’s me, Stefanie Benshimol. You remember me? Remember last year when Trump freed the hostages?” she yelled at Mamdani while filming inside the shop. “It’s all because of you we have so much antisemitism.”
Benshimol, a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, shamed Mamdani for appearing in the neighborhood given the rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes across the city.
“Shame on you for coming to Borough Park where my Bubbie came after the Holocaust!” she roared.
“My Bubbie and Zaidy came to Borough Park! You have such chutzpah coming here! Shame on you!” Benshimol yelled, using the Yiddish words for grandmother and grandfather respectively.
As the Zionist activist grew increasingly emphatic, staff shooed her out of the store, prompting her to call one of the workers a “kapo” — a term for a concentration camp prisoner forced by the Nazis to supervise fellow captives.
“Are you a kapo? Are you supporting him? Do you support Israel? Do you support Israel? Do you?”
Her vitriol then turned toward the Eichler’s store, whose owners she accused of wanting to “kiss ass to the hater of all Jewish people!”
“Shame on you Eichler’s, shame on you for allowing Zohran Mamdani to come to the heart of the Jewish neighborhood in Borough Park,” Benshimol said.
“They want to kiss ass to the hater of all Jewish people!”
Mamdani didn’t respond to Benshimol’s taunts.
Hate crimes surged in the Big Apple under Mamdani this year – with more than half of incidents targeting Jewish New Yorkers, unsettling new crime statistics show.
Hate crimes are up 9.4% citywide and more than half — 56.9% — were antisemitic attacks, despite Jewish people making up just 10% of New York City’s population, according to NYPD data released last month.
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