Won’t you take me to Hymie Town

The Rise of Mamdani and the Red-Green Threat

In 1984, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson infamously referred to New York as “Hymie Town,” a slur that deeply offended Jewish Americans. Four decades later, the question isn’t whether that insult still echoes—but whether radical candidate Zohran Mamdani will get to rule over the very “Zionist colonizers” (AKA Jews) his movement vilifies.

Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in the Democratic mayoral primary sent shockwaves through New York’s Jewish community—and for anyone who fled the USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, or who recognizes the creeping threat of Islamist and communist ideologies, it’s triggering chilling flashbacks. Mamdani embodies the dangerous “Red-Green Alliance”—the unholy political union of far-left radicals and Islamist apologists—all in one figure.

Mamdani, ever the showman, had aspirations to be a rapper. In a 2017 song titled “Salam,” under the stage name Mr. Cardamom, he expressed admiration for the “Holy Land Five”—“My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ‘em up.”

Look ‘em up and you’ll find a group convicted in 2008 for providing financial backing to Hamas, a designated terror organization. Under normal circumstances, he’d be running from deportation instead of running for mayor of New York City.

His radical anti-Israel stance and open support for BDS are only part of the problem. This moment marks the full collapse of a Jewish political establishment that has long since abandoned its own people.

Mamdani’s platform is a muscular rehash of the David Dinkins era—tax hikes, economic decline, and soft-pedaled law enforcement—repackaged with progressive slogans, imaginary Castro-esque promises of free groceries, public transportation, and targeting the rich white tax base.

The hypocrisy is staggering when you discover that he is the son of a wealthy, connected Ugandan-Indian power couple—one a filmmaker, whose net worth is estimated at $10 million. As they say in Italy, “every communist has a maid.”

Mamdani’s socialism doesn’t uplift—it erases. It replaces creatives and builders with slogans, protests, and crime. It infiltrates communities with collectivist chaos. Yet he drapes himself in the garb of revolution, wears a keffiyeh like a costume, and preaches socialism from the comfort of inherited privilege.

He is rather fond of Islamist dog whistles and weaponized buzzwords:

“Globalize the Intifada.”
“Genocide.”

And when questioned on these positions, he conceals and deflects with the calculated polish of Taqiyya—an Islamic concept referring to the concealment of beliefs when under threat. But in this case, the concealment is strategic, intended to lull voters into thinking they’re voting for reform when they’re really inviting in a radical agenda masked as progress.

Mamdani didn’t just endorse anti-Israel rhetoric—he helped build it. As a student at Bowdoin College, he founded its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)—the same group whose affiliates infiltrated my hotel and triggered more than 1,500 death threats against my family.

We were boycotted, harassed, and targeted for cancellation—as a Jewish-owned business—because we stand proudly with Israel. So here we are, a Jewish family business in NYC, dedicated to the community and the poster child for art and preservation, up against a new generation of haters who have targeted our business and family in our beloved Land of the Free.

They wrote:

“This hotel belongs to a Jewish terror family and needs to be closed in one way or another. No mercy!!! 💣”

That’s not activism. That’s incitement.

It is easy to destroy—but hard to build.

Our hotel in New York City is a neighborhood icon, a five-year art preservation and design project. Chosen as “One of 150 in the Western Hemisphere” by National Geographic, featured in over 40 major articles, a fount for the local community and a hub for art, history, and culture.

Blue Moon Hotel 7th floor hallwayRandy/Yisroel Settenbrino

Our Family’s Story: A Hotel Besieged

NYC: It is Utterly Craven That A City Hunts for Cash Cows While Crippling Its Creators. New York City’s relentless search for revenue—through tax hikes and bureaucratic overreach—has left only monopolies and hedge funds standing. Independent, family-run businesses are pushed out, punished, or ignored.

My Family’s Story: A Microcosm of Betrayal Despite pouring millions into city coffers through real estate and sales taxes—and contributing meaningfully to the culture and history of New York—we were disenfranchised. The city’s “one-size-fits-all” approach failed us completely.

As a small, self-starting, family-run business, we needed tailored support—not unattainable, generic handouts.

Our EIDL was delayed seven months, and we received no PPP. As a result, we fell behind on taxes, making us ineligible for larger grants—grants others collected before disappearing. We received no aid. No grants. Nothing.

Officials visited, praised our hotel as a “unique gift” and a “labor of love,” smiled for the cameras—but when it came time to help? Silence. Instead, we faced rising tax demands and compounding penalties.

This wasn’t just neglect—it was betrayal. A betrayal of the small businesses that are the soul of New York.

We were forced to remain closed for 18 months. With over $500,000 in taxes and a crushing mortgage, we survived. But our greatest challenge—during and after the pandemic—has been a city and state that burdened and punished families like ours, who built businesses rooted in history, art, community service, and preservation.

And at the same time, we were targetted by Hamas supporters because our two sons serve in the IDF.

Pro-Hamas vandalism at Blue Moon HotelRandy/Yisroel SettenbrinoAntisemitic campaign against Blue Moon HotelRandy/Yisroel Settenbrino

The Betrayal of Jewish Leadership

Now, the man who wants to further erode our tax base, empty the city’s middle class, and has worked hard to normalize hate, wants to be mayor of the largest Jewish city outside Israel—and our so-called Jewish leadership (not the rank and file Jewish voters) meets his candidacy? Silence. Or worse, applause.

Take Chuck Schumer: “He ran an impressive campaign that connected with New Yorkers about affordability, fairness, and opportunity.”

And Jerry Nadler: “With Zohran’s triumph, we have a direct repudiation of Donald Trump’s politics.”
“I’ve spoken to him about his commitment to fighting antisemitism.”

What moral cowardice. What betrayal.

Schumer and Nadler are protecting their party—not their people. They are a disgrace, signaling to the world that Jewish lives don’t matter and the economic future of America’s premier city is irrelevant. They don’t live among us. They’ve never walked as visible Jews through Crown Heights, Boro Park, or Williamsburg.

Do they think the next pogrom will be stopped by Mamdani—a man who glorified the Holyland Foundation, a CAIR front with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood?

It will not.

It will only be stopped by people who actively fight injustice. Remember Meir Kahane—who defended elderly Jews on the streets of Brooklyn and was the catalyst for Soviet Jewry’s freedom?

And yet the ADL targeted Kahane, fed intel to the FBI, and stayed silent—because the establishment opposes real grassroots leadership in favor of appeasement and protocol, even when Jewish lives are at stake.

Remember the Jackson-Vanik Amendment (1974), which forced the USSR to allow Jewish emigration. The establishment—led by Henry Kissinger—opposed it. Kissinger infamously asserted that:

“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy.”

He dismissed those advocating for it as “traitorous” and actively worked against the amendment.

Democrats, Trump, and the Truth About Leadership

By their silence, the elected Jewish Democrat leadership were complicit in the campus protests—allowing the Obama-Biden agenda to cultivate a generation of subversives, with hundreds of millions in EPA dollars directed to far-left political groups under the banner of “climate justice.”

The pro-jihad Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) website declares: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.”

The Grassroots Global Justice Alliance openly merges radical politics with environmental funding.

A Manhattan Institute report states the Obama-Biden “environmental justice” agenda was a massive federal effort to bankroll ideologically driven local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act’s $3 billion earmark for “environmental and climate justice bloc grants” is just the latest mechanism for this ideological pipeline.

So fueled by government funding, campus riots exploded—and Jewish politicians were nowhere to be found.

Schumer, the self-proclaimed guardian of Israel, was too busy taking a knee for George Floyd. (Perhaps he should have taken a knee for Jesus—at least he was a Jew.) He could have distanced himself from BLM, which openly supports anti-Zionist protests, and stood with Evangelicals who defend Israel. But he didn’t. None of them did—except Morton Klein of ZOA.

Perhaps today it could be said the ZOA and the Coalition for Jewish Values are the only leadership Jews can trust.

As for the mayoral elections, Curtis Sliwa was forged in the street battles of this city—loud, fearless, mission-driven, and loyal to safe streets and the vulnerable.

Sliwa is the Republican candidate. A win in 2025 will be a referendum on antisemitism and crime. We need to unite the city’s silent majority on one candidate and he is the one to support.

It’s Time for New Yorker Tough Love—and Real Leadership

Republican Leadership Has Proven Most Effective in Guiding New York:
Republican NYC Mayors:
• Rudy Giuliani
• Michael Bloomberg

Republican Governors of New York:
• Thomas E. Dewey
• Nelson Rockefeller
• George Pataki
• Theodore Roosevelt

What do we have now from the DNC and the mainstream Jewish establishment? Empty platitudes instead of pressure. Compromise over courage. Appeasement. All of it a serious matter for concern.

They get everything backwards: Trump bad, Obama good.

When Trump struck Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—obliterating the nuclear ambitions of a deadly theocratic regime, Democrats responded by calling for his impeachment.

The first to speak out? Schumer: “No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy.”

Obama & Biden: The Legacy of Terror
• ISIS surged
• Hamas and Hezbollah rearmed
• Ambassador Stevens was murdered
• UN Resolution 2334 passed
• U.S. dollars funded Palestinian “pay-to-slay”
• EPA slush funds used for homegrown subversives

The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
David Friedman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, responded: “Kamala Harris just publicly validated the false and vicious accusation that Israel is engaging in genocide.”

President Trump: Strengthened American Jewish Safety and Israel’s Borders
• Created Title VI protections for Jewish students
• Moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem
• Recognized the Golan Heights
• Brokered the Abraham Accords
• Appointed an Antisemitism Czar
• Defunded Hamas

Although there was no Jewish leader in sight with the resolve Trump showed, all we heard was sneering—even though reality dictated that if you put all the American Jewish organizations and politicians on one side of a scale, and President Trump on the other, he would outweigh them all.

If that’s not an indictment of Jewish leadership, nothing is.

Let them know at the polls: we are done coordinating with our enemies to the bitter end.

Curtis Sliwa: NYC’s Last Chance

Curtis has NYC style, and there is no better gig for him to show it than as mayor.

Although the establishment will find him a politically incorrect anathema, grassroots New Yorkers who love this city will cheer him on as he fights back against those who have taken a bite out of the Big Apple.

Fierce, unapologetic leadership—for New Yorkers, by New Yorkers—will bring back safe streets, economic solvency, and give Jewish New Yorkers peace of mind, knowing someone who truly loves this city is finally in charge.

Being a Brooklyn boy with a tough Italian American father and a sharp Jewish mother made me understand Trump—the citizen turned candidate. He defines old-school New York: don’t mince words, give the shirt off your back, but push him and you’ll get knocked down so hard you won’t get up.

It is exactly his veracity and directness that allow him to deal effectively with career politicians, neo-socialism, and the intensifying antisemitism that has penetrated our society and encumbered our daily lives.

That’s the mindset we need to lead New Yorkers—and it’s how we’ll enjoy the ride back to the top.

We’ll watch with amusement as Curtis calls out the self-serving politicians and establishment flunkies.

Wow—can you imagine how Mamdani’s head will spin when he gets read? Hey Mamdani—fuhgeddaboudit. No Red-Green shape-shifters in our town. Take your socialist, Islamist-supporting, carpetbagging charade West—and take your bag of tricks with you.

If the elites are too refined for NYC straight talk, then they should consider this:

Every major Democratic city in the union is a disaster zone.

So to all New Yorkers—let’s polish the Big Apple. Don’t let NYC become just another urban ruin statistic.

Randyl Settenbrino is the artist and developer of the Historic Blue Moon Hotel, The Sweet dreams Café and the Last Jewish Tenement Tours, His project was chosen by National Geographic as one of 150 in the Western Hemisphere. He writes on art, psychology, theology, and practical philosophy.