More than 700 rabbis from across the US have signed an open letter demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani apologize for calling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee “monsters” who move “millions in dark money” to preserve their power.
“Using the language of ‘monsters’ against political opponents is an act of dehumanization, and when the targets of that dehumanization are overwhelmingly associated with the Jewish community the consequences become especially dangerous,” read the letter organized by the pro-Zionism group The Jewish Majority.
The signatories include Rabbi David Ingber, founder of the Romemu congregation and senior director of Jewish life at 92NY; Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side; Rabbi Neil Zuckerman of the Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of neighboring Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.
“When Mayor Mamdani speaks, he is not speaking only for himself. He serves as a model for a growing political movement whose rhetoric and priorities are increasingly being emulated nationwide,” the rabbis continued.
“When public figures treat ‘Zionists’ as a uniquely suspect category of people, they are speaking about the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community. Demonizing Zionists is not perceived by most Jews as criticism of a foreign government; it is experienced as an attack on a core component of Jewish identity and peoplehood.”
The letter cited a rise in antisemitic attacks, including last year’s murder of two employees of Israel’s embassy in Washington and plots of violence against an AIPAC office and AIPAC-supported politicians, as evidence of increasing danger facing the Jewish community.
“By casting pro-Israel civic participation as monstrous, conspiratorial and anti-democratic, Mr. Mamdani has put a target on the backs of American Jews and their allies,” the rabbis said before calling on Hizzoner to say he’s sorry, “retract his remarks and affirm clearly that Jews and pro-Israel Americans are full participants in our democracy.
“Criticizing Israeli policy is not antisemitic. Treating millions of Zionist Jews as morally suspect, politically illegitimate or less deserving of equal participation in public life is.”
“The campaign is over, the votes are counted, and now the mayor needs to lower the temperature before someone gets hurt,” The Jewish Majority executive director Jonathan Schulman told The Post.
“Now is the time of monsters,” the mayor said during a 30-minute tirade at a campaign rally last week. “These monsters take many forms today. In those who fund … bad-faith attacks … those who would rather spend far more on political contributions than they would ever be made to pay in taxes.”
“In AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s wars.”
The mayor, in an attempt to defend his comments, later said that “I was quoting [Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio] Gramsci, who said: ‘The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.’
“I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world,” Mamdani added. “Not solely AIPAC, but frankly, super PACs at large who are spending millions of dollars in deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing airwave.”
The 34-year-old mayor supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the Jewish state, has repeatedly accused Israel’s military of “genocidal war” in Gaza and even vowed last year to arrest Netanyahu for alleged war crimes if he ever sets foot in the five boroughs.
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