As New Yorkers, we know the subway is the great equalizer. But for many Jews, that sense of safety is disappearing.
Recently, a Jewish woman boarded a C train. Another rider began ranting about Jews stealing wealth, turned to her, stared her down, and then choked her, kicked her to the ground, and ripped a clump of her hair out, while screaming “Jews are eating kids.”
Days later, Mayor Mamdani still didn’t publicly condemn the attack.
This comes as the NYPD reported a 70% increase in hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers in May compared to 2025. And yet, Mamdani found time to talk about the Knicks’ playoff run, including repealing bedtime so children could watch the NBA Finals.
His silence is part of a pattern.
He’s promoted misleading narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including a recent video erasing the Jewish experience, refused to condemn “globalize the intifada,” an antisemitic dog whistle to attack Jews, and he became the first mayor to skip the Israel Day Parade, the nation’s largest Jewish parade that celebrates Jewish self-determination and security after thousands of years of persecution and annihilation.
Tens of thousands marched anyway: Jews from every denomination and political background, faith leaders, families, and the first-ever Muslim group to march in solidarity. The NYPD deployed its most extensive security operation in the parade’s history. The mayor chose not to join them.
A recent poll by The Jewish Majority found that 82% of New York City Jews are concerned about rising antisemitism. Sixty percent cite the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism — the belief that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state — as a major cause. And the data points directly to Mamdani: by a ratio of 3-to-1, Jewish New Yorkers believe his refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” has directly emboldened those who now regularly harass Jewish New Yorkers with terrorist organization paraphernalia.
Nearly 1,500 rabbis and Jewish leaders in New York recently signed letters warning against the normalization of anti-Zionism and the hostility facing Jews in New York.
The mayor seems to misunderstand what Israel means to most Jewish New Yorkers. It’s central to Jewish life, faith, and identity, and an existential insurance policy forged through the Holocaust, pogroms, and the ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities across the Arab world. A Jewish state means Jews always have somewhere safe to go.
The same poll found that by 3-to-1, Jewish New Yorkers agree that denying Israel’s right to exist strikes at the heart of Jewish identity.
None of this means Jewish New Yorkers don’t criticize the Israeli government. Of course we do. I have challenged the government from my pulpit, and I’ll continue to. But the Israeli government isn’t the same as Israel being the Jewish homeland — a distinction that gets lost too often.
We’re demanding more from our mayor. Not the bare minimum of security deployment or carefully worded statements, but leadership. That means refusing to allow Jews to be demonized and targeted, condemning calls to “globalize the intifada” and supporting buffer zone legislation that will protect Jewish schools.
There’s a difference between holding power accountable and treating Jewish lives as an abstraction. A mayor who can find the words to celebrate the Knicks but not condemn a Jewish woman being beaten on the subway is failing a basic leadership test.
New York has long prided itself on being for everyone. The city’s leaders need to reckon honestly with what this moment is costing the Jewish community — and what it’ll cost all of us if they keep looking away.
Ingber is the founding rabbi of Romemu, a major synagogue in Manhattan and Brooklyn.