Mamdani the Prophet Has Arrived
Zohran Derangement Syndrome spreads to the Jewish left
At a June 18 Get Out the Vote rally, New York’s superstar mayor Zohran Mamdani made waves not only by calling out AIPAC, but by naming the organization’s malign influence in the starkest of terms: monsters.
This was not a prediction. Mamdani was reflecting on decades of empirically demonstrated political impact. AIPAC has destroyed lives, tipped primaries, built careers and torn them apart. In its ruthless focus on strengthening the “ironclad” US-Israel relationship, AIPAC has warped our political landscape so dramatically that Vice President Harris might plausibly credit those perverse conditions for her historic tactical blunders in the 2024 campaign.
When Mamdani called for unity in defiance of the monsters who seek to divide us, that wasn’t hyperbole. It wasn’t poetry. It was a fact – situated in the timeless words of the Italian Marxist philosopher and anti-fascist Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” He named AIPAC as one of those monsters, “for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars.”
When pressed the following day at City Hall, Mamdani doubled down: “I want to be very clear: We’re talking about a status quo where children are being killed on a daily basis.” This is the monstrosity we all bear witness to, and Mamdani rightly identified AIPAC as the monsters in the room enabling this genocide. In the broader political conversation, “AIPAC” has become shorthand for the collection of pro-Israel groups grasping to maintain the unjust status quo, not merely the titular American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They didn’t invent divide-and-conquer, but they’re damn good at it. These are the facts.
On cue, AIPAC-aligned organizations jumped to mischaracterize Mamdani’s statements and mobilize that lie into a political attack. In their reformulation, the mayor called Jewish people monsters – not the genocidal political movement undermining our democracy. The insurgent, arguably ascendant left-wing slate of local candidates he was rallying for all got tarred as irredeemably antisemitic, echoing the Jewish establishment’s well-worn line of attack against the anti-genocide left.
We are at a critical juncture. While Mayor Mamdani had heretofore been frank and firm in his opposition to an ethnic supremacist state and the lobby that protects it, calling them “monsters” reflects a new degree of confidence in asserting just how ruinous AIPAC and its allies have been.
This dramatic flourish also reveals the elevated stakes of the moment; these local elections with Mamdani-endorsed candidates are a crucial early test of his gravitas within the party. As their fears have proven out with the influence of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Israel lobby sees in Mamdani not just a loss of power in New York City, but a real threat to their privileged position in Democratic politics writ large. Elevated rhetoric from Mamdani shows just how important these races are to the larger movement he represents; so too does the overreaction to the rhetoric. How is AIPAC supposed to grapple with the specter of a prime-time Mamdani speech at the 2028 Democratic National Convention?
“Monsters” was entirely descriptive, but within 72 hours a chorus of zionist hit dogs came hollering. Their responses spanned from the indefensible to the absurd, but in their own way each reaction was monstrous. They proved Mamdani’s point. In their knee-jerk smear campaign against an indisputably humanitarian mayor and the broader anti-genocide left, right-wing and left-wing Zionists alike joined in an embodiment of the exact conduct that earned the “monstrous” label in the first place. They made Mamdani into a prophet.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt led the charge, claiming Mamdani demonized and denigrated Jewish New Yorkers. Erasing the substance of the mayor’s comments, Greenblatt wrote “this is not a principled disagreement. This is prejudice pure and simple.”
The American Jewish Committee’s Ted Deutch came next, expanding on the fabricated grievance in an open letter to Mamdani. “When you use your position to label people you disagree with as monsters – people who spent yesterday celebrating their fathers and grandfathers – you are turning people against one another.” Citing the shared experiences of loving the New York Knicks and of having fathers, Deutch implied Mamdani had deliberately sought to dehumanize regular constituents. Of course, Mamdani had done nothing of the sort.
Jewbelong.org, a privately funded advertising outfit, rolled out its own punchy version of the party-line propaganda: “When the NYC mayor calls Jews ‘monsters,’ he’s talking about the bougie ones in Brooklyn who voted for him, too.”
Three separate organizations. A single, completely fabricated line of attack. Nearly three years into the genocide in Gaza and a full year into the Mamdani era of Democratic politics, it’s not surprising to see these tired, bad-faith missives from extremist right-wing zionists. What actually surprised me was the agreement from leaders on the Jewish left.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs brings legitimate left-wing bona fides to any conversation she’s in. Jacobs is the CEO of T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. She has deployed formal Jewish law to argue for living wages, dignified employment conditions, and union hiring. She has been outspoken in her community against delegitimizing and criminalizing the nonviolent Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement.
In every sense, Jacobs is a political rabbi. Her politics are inextricably Jewish and her rabbinate is inherently political. On the question of President Trump, Jacobs said “Now is the time for principled opposition, not accommodation.” The tragic failure of this moment – indeed the monstrosity of her position – lies in her choice to engage the Israel lobby not with principled opposition, but with accommodation.
On the left – where Jacobs lives, works, and organizes – accommodating Israeli fascism while opposing American fascism is a fully nonsensical position. Yet on her Substack, Jacobs embraced the frame of the Mamdani smear and lent her good progressive name to a lie that is fundamentally authoritarian in its purpose and construction:
“AIPAC has had a negative influence on American politics for decades,” she concedes, recounting some of the strongest indictments against the organization. But she spends the rest of the post erecting and knocking down a straw man: that Mamdani and Palestinian-sympathetic politicians claim AIPAC is the leading, if not sole, evil influence in American politics. Jacobs knows this is a lie. It’s her job to know it’s a lie. This post is monstrous because it is designed to trick regular Jewish voters into absorbing a false impression of Zohran Mamdani and the rising anti-Israel left.
As a professional political operative, Jacobs is unquestionably qualified to recognize what Mamdani claimed and what he did not. She understands what the Mamdani-endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier means when contrasting billions in aid to Israel with basic human needs remaining unmet here in the U.S. And she knows full well the political weight of Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner saying his fascist-friendly opponent Susan Collins is “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu.” Yet each of these politicians are singled out for crossing Jacobs’ line distinguishing rhetoric that is acceptable from that which evokes antisemitism.
When the ADL, the AJC, and Jewbelong move together to smear a pro-democracy movement for universal human rights, their lies and deceptions are always monstrous. Their whole project is monstrous; their choice to denigrate Mamdani’s remarks in a fashion that only proves his point is all but inevitable.
But progressive leaders in Mamdani’s own coalition joining the bandwagon and leveraging the lies against an array of Democrats is its own uniquely monstrous betrayal. It’s a betrayal of the Jewish people Rabbi Jill Jacobs is charged with leading, not manipulating. It’s a betrayal of progressives, and of Democrats, who benefit from the fierce messaging she seeks to disqualify. And it’s a betrayal of Zohran Mamdani himself.
On Tuesday, June 2, Mayor Mamdani spoke at T’ruah’s annual gala. He lauded the organization for its work against the Israeli occupation, in defiance of ICE, in opposition to the human rights catastrophes of Rikers Island jails and solitary confinement more broadly, and in support of labor rights and protections. “I just want to say a deep thank you to Rabbi Jill Jacobs,” he added, inviting the room to join in a round of applause.
“We live in a time of immense division and mistrust, where too many are subjected to immense cruelty. …We also know that fear has crept into your lives as well. The rising tide of antisemitism has taken a toll. Synagogues vandalized. Doors once left unlocked are no longer. Too many Jewish New Yorkers have been threatened and harassed on the streets of our city. We need not accept this hate and callousness as normal. And we will not.
Just as tonight’s honorees have worked for the safety and dignity of all people, so too will City Hall follow their lead. …Psalm 89:16 teaches: ‘fortunate are the ones who know this joyful shout.’ Fortunate is our city that so many who know this sound choose to call it home. Thank you for all that you do.”
In naming and shaming AIPAC – correctly and forcefully – Mamdani was made into a prophet by the very forces seeking to scandalize him for exposing their true nature. Political Zionism is crumbling, lashing out as its iron grip on American politics is rapidly loosening and its stranglehold on Jewish communal politics now increasingly in question. In its ashes something new will rise. Something joyful. Something true.
From NBA championship parades, to sanitation workers’ press conferences, to annual galas at organizations that will just as soon betray him, with each passing day Mamdani the Prophet is speaking that joyous future into existence. He has arrived:
“As Gramsci said, ‘The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.’ These monsters take many forms today. In those who fund television ads that blanket the airwaves with misleading and bad faith attacks about Claire (Valdez), Brad Lander, and Dari (Darializa Avila Chevalier) 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 Netanyahu’s wars.
“They move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary. In a politics that for too long has asked working people to lower their expectations, to settle for less, to become satisfied with small victories while our wages grow even smaller and our costs grow even larger, to resign ourselves to resignation, to accept the unacceptable.
“In the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we need not live in fear of monsters any longer. If a new world is truly to be born, then where else should it be born than right here in New York? Where else should that new world be born than in the city the entire world seeks to emulate? On June 23rd, we will win that new world together.”
Editor’s note: On June 23, they won. All of them.
Previously, on Certain Thoughts:
Zionism Is an Assault on Western Civilization
White supremacists have so consistently presented their authoritarian agenda as a “defense of Western civilization,” you could be excused for wondering if “Western civilization” is even a good thing.
Don’t Piss Blood On Me And Tell Me It’s Raining
In late August 2020, seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse heavily armed himself and traveled across state lines to confront Black Lives Matter protestors.
Meanwhile, Mamdani ally Brad Lander just beat Dan Goldman in a landslide.
“The Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt led the charge, claiming Mamdani demonized and denigrated Jewish New Yorkers. Erasing the substance of the mayor’s comments, Greenblatt wrote “this is not a principled disagreement. This is prejudice pure and simple.”
Greenblatt is another hypocrite and pathetic liar!
For example, when Musk embraced The Great Replacement Theory in 2023—with a post blaming “Jewish communities” for conspiring against whites —Greenblatt condemned it as “indisputably dangerous.”
Then, two days later, after Musk announced he’d suspend users posting certain pro-Palestinian phrases, Greenblatt praised Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate.”
After that, Greenblatt changed the focus of the organization—fighting right-wing anti-semitism—instead focusing on pro-Palestinian activism; completely undermining the organization’s credibility!
And with his Mandani outrage, he’s proven the point! I guess wealth can by your silence with Greenblatt—especially when anti-semitism has been the on the rise on X and in this nation since Trump rode down his golden escalator in 2016.
And in 2022, a year before Musk went full Nazi, ADL researchers were reporting antisemitic content on X had increased over 60% since Musk’s takeover which is when the ADL joined an advertising boycott of the platform, before reversing course and rolling out the red carpet for the most anti-Semitic guy on the planet, who happens to own a platform that can shape minds of young men (White Supremacists) for generations to come!