{"id":235887,"date":"2026-05-18T21:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/235887\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T21:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:20:09","slug":"historical-revisionism-nyc-jewish-community-leaders-react-to-mayor-mamdanis-nakba-day-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/235887\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Historical revisionism:\u2019 NYC Jewish community leaders react to Mayor Mamdani\u2019s Nakba Day post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, who has repeatedly made clear that he is strongly pro-Palestine and critical of the Israeli government<\/a>, took to social media on Friday to recognize Nakba Remembrance Day, thus doubling down on his beliefs.<\/p>\n

In a May 15 post on X, the mayor described Nakba Day as \u201can annual day of remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post included a video interview with a Palestinian New Yorker named Inea, who described her experience as a 9-year-old of having to flee her home during the historical event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The video, produced by the mayor\u2019s office in a documentary style with captions, interviews, and somber music, explains that militias and other groups \u201cdestroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities, killing thousands of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many NYC Jewish leaders, however, took offense with the post, saying it delegitimizes Israel\u2019s existence. Israel was created in the wake of the Holocaust after Britain ended its occupation in the area, and the United Nations\u2019 Partition Plan for Palestine divided the area into separate Jewish and Arab territories.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani\u2019s official promotion of a one-sided \u2018Nakba Day\u2019 narrative is nothing less than state-sanctioned historical revisionism,\u201d Brooke Goldstein, executive director and founder of The Lawfare Project<\/a>, a pro-bono legal services group for the Jewish community, said. \u201cHe is using his office to distort history to delegitimize Israel\u2019s existence as the indigenous Jewish people\u2019s exercise of self-determination after centuries of exile and the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Mamdani said he will not attend the Israel Day on Fifth Parade, taking place on May 31 this year.<\/p>\n

Goldstein added that the mayor has \u201cchosen to align with voices that traffic in eliminationist rhetoric\u201d as protests in NYC still pop up with messaging, chants and harassment targeting Jewish people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers deserve, we are entitled to, equal protection under the law, not selective empathy that excuses mob intimidation while amplifying propaganda,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rabbi Mark Wildes, founder and director of the Manhattan Jewish Experience<\/a>, said the incident underscored a growing pattern involving the mayor and his relationship with Jewish New Yorkers. He argued that the mayor does not do enough to address antisemitic attacks in NYC and focuses instead on criticizing Israel \u2014 something the rabbi said makes hostility and violence against Jewish people even worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani continues to ignore the attacks on the Jewish community in NYC and prioritizes every opportunity to label Israel as an apartheid state,\u201d the rabbi explained. \u201cHis failure of leadership and irresponsible rhetoric is causing an atmosphere of continued violence towards Jews in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mamdani rebuked the backlash against the video. He said at an unrelated press conference on Monday that he was proud to share Inea\u2019s story.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAcknowledging any people\u2019s pain does not preclude you from the acknowledgment of another people\u2019s,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cAnd when it comes to New Yorkers like Inea and so many others, not only has their pain never been acknowledged, but so often we have seen that even their identity is up for debate. And my message to each and every New Yorker is that this is a city for you and that we will continue to be proud of everyone who calls it home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani added that he wanted to be there for Inea\u2019s interview, but fell sick the day of the shoot.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, City Council Member James Gennaro (D-Queens) had choice words for Mamdani\u2019s video, calling it \u201cpropaganda\u201d and a \u201cdisgraceful one-sided rewrite of history that spits in the face of truth and every Jewish New Yorker.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He explained that the mayor omitted several key aspects of that period in history, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cGlossing over the Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan, the immediate invasion by five Arab armies hellbent on wiping out the Jewish state at birth, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries isn\u2019t \u2018remembrance\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s rank historical revisionism and selective outrage designed to paint Israel as the eternal villain,\u201d Gennaro said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has repeatedly made clear that he is strongly pro-Palestine and critical of the Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92337,22925,92338,9,56,63,65,64,92339,19660],"class_list":["post-235887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city-council-member-jim-gennaro","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-nakba-day","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics-in-nyc","tag-the-lawfare-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}