reported<\/a> that Jews, 4% of Massachusetts residents, were targeted in 83.3% of the commonwealth\u2019s religion-bias hate crimes last year.<\/p>\nMamdani\u2019s rhetoric, including calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a \u201cwar criminal\u201d recently and saying that he would try to arrest him in the Big Apple, has been very troubling, according to Michael Wildes, mayor of Englewood, N.J., located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York and the surrounding area, including my own city of Englewood, N.J., has long been home to one of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel,\u201d Wildes told JNS.<\/p>\n
\u201cEstablished as a bedroom community to Wall Street\u2014it has been a beacon of tolerance, opportunity and security for Jewish families for generations,\u201d he said. \u201cPublic officials have a responsibility to ensure that all communities feel protected, respected and welcome\u2014not singled out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wildes told JNS that his family escaped the Holocaust and \u201cmade their way through America\u2019s golden doors, merely a few nautical miles away where Lady Liberty still stands.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have spent a lifetime fighting antisemitism,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cI believe we must reject rhetoric that further inflames hatred and polarization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivky Feiner, a community activist from Rockland County, N.Y., which includes the Orthodox enclave of Monsey, told JNS that residents, who are about 30 miles northwest of Manhattan, are \u201cdeeply concerned about Mamdani\u2019s influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York City is only a short drive away, and many of us have family, businesses, and daily ties there,\u201d said Feiner, who is a board member at but didn\u2019t speak on behalf of a local Jewish Federation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are worried for our brothers and sisters who live in the city,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are concerned about the impact his policies and political movement could have beyond its borders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feiner told JNS that it was a \u201cwake-up call\u201d when candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and sympathetic to its views, including former city comptroller Brad Lander, won Democratic primaries in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America make significant gains reinforced for us that we cannot take any election for granted,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur community is more engaged than ever in supporting candidates at the local, state and federal levels who we believe will protect public safety, religious freedoms and the values that are important to our community,\u201d she told JNS.<\/p>\n
To Feiner, Mamdani is not \u201can isolated New York phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe reflects a broader political movement that has gained traction nationally, and that is why communities everywhere must stay vigilant,\u201d she said. \u201cThe warning signs are disengagement, low voter turnout and assuming that these movements cannot succeed locally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe answer is not fear. It is civic engagement,\u201d she told JNS. \u201cVote in every election, know who is on your ballot and never take your community\u2019s future for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen, the Connecticut rabbi, told JNS that he and members of his synagogue would plan to go to Turtle Bay to show support for Netanyahu if the Israeli premier opts to attend the U.N. General Assembly in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one nation as a Jewish people,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all stand and should stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community and, for that matter, with people of good nature in New York who understand that there is no place for this sort of rhetoric, intolerance, hate and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rhetoric that enabled Mamdani to take power is a \u201cvirus\u201d that can spread to any community, according to Cohen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re living in a society, unfortunately, which is so polarized, where people cannot have conversations with people that they disagree with without demonizing them and portraying them as wicked and evil,\u201d he said. \u201cThat also creates an environment that is ripe for antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
One way to fight rising Jew-hatred in America is by \u201cincreasing our light,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery synagogue should be feeding the homeless,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cEvery synagogue should be out there thanking the first responders. We all should be doing that and not just retreating into our own towers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy doing that, we create more sanctification of God\u2019s name,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cMaybe somebody will then look at a Jew and say, \u2018You know what? It\u2019s amazing, this person, what he\u2019s doing. I want more of that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Aug. 12, 2026 \/ JNS) Anecdotal accounts of Jews and Zionists leaving or planning to vacate New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-584725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}