{"id":303432,"date":"2026-07-23T01:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303432\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T01:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:25:14","slug":"criticism-cannot-become-erasure-a-letter-to-new-york-city-mayor-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303432\/","title":{"rendered":"Criticism cannot become erasure: A letter to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Mayor Mamdani<\/a>,\u00a0<\/p>\n

We have met a few times. After our first meeting, I wrote publicly that I did not believe it was fair to call you an antisemite simply because of your views on Israel. I meant it. I do not regret meeting you or resisting the pressure to reduce you to a label.<\/p>\n

I am writing now for the same reason: Honest dialogue cannot require silence when something hurts. Your video about Benjamin Netanyahu hurt me deeply.<\/p>\n

You called him a \u201cwar criminal<\/a>\u201d and \u201cthe architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.\u201d You said he was \u201cnot welcome in New York\u201d and urged the federal government to join the International Criminal Court and execute its warrant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What hurt me was not that you criticized Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an unknown location, in this still image taken from handout video released July 21, 2026. (credit: NYC Mayor’s Office via Youtube\/Handout via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

I have serious concerns about his leadership, his government, and aspects of Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza<\/a>. Palestinian suffering is real, and no moral person should look away. Millions of Israelis oppose Netanyahu. Few may even believe he should answer before a court in The Hague. They still love their country. Their criticism does not cancel their belonging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The same is true for me. I am an American Jew, but Israel is not just a foreign-policy issue. Today it serves as the homeland of the Jewish people and the home of millions – Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Netanyahu supporters and people who cannot wait to see him leave office.<\/p>\n

Israel is deeply embedded in Jewish history<\/p>\n

As I write this, Tisha B\u2019Av begins tonight. Tomorrow, together with Jews around the world, I will fast and mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and the exile and tragedies that followed.<\/p>\n

That fast explains something I fear your video did not fully recognize. My bond with Jerusalem did not begin with Netanyahu. It did not begin in 1948. For two thousand years, Jews prayed toward Jerusalem and refused to forget it. Israel is woven into our faith, memory, and identity. A prime minister can disappoint me, anger me, or fail morally without severing that bond.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu is not Israel. No prime minister is.<\/p>\n

Yet your condemnation of Netanyahu came with little recognition of Israeli humanity. There was no October 7. No Hamas. No hostages. No acknowledgment of families living with massacre, displacement, and fear. No recognition of Israelis who oppose Netanyahu and his government\u2019s policies but still run to shelters and watch loved ones called into military service.<\/p>\n

No statement can contain this conflict\u2019s tortured history. Palestinians should not have to begin every expression of grief with a disclaimer about Hamas. Israelis should not have to begin every expression of grief or fear with a defense of Netanyahu – or an apology for their government. Neither people should be reduced to leaders they may oppose.<\/p>\n

But this was a deliberate message from the mayor of New York City. What you omitted mattered.<\/p>\n

I once sat on a New York City<\/a> train wearing my kippah when someone looked toward me and screamed, \u201cFree Palestine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I had said nothing about Israel. I was not defending Netanyahu. I was simply a visibly Jewish American riding a train in my own city. My kippah was enough to turn me, in a stranger\u2019s eyes, into a representative of a government thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n

That experience did not make me want to cut Israel out of my identity. It made me reject the false choice imposed on Jews: Either defend every action of an Israeli government or renounce our attachment to Israel to prove our innocence.<\/p>\n

I will do neither.<\/p>\n

I know you understand that your words do not remain inside a video. They travel into subway cars, campuses, offices, and streets, where the distinctions among Netanyahu, Israel, Israelis, Zionism, and ordinary Jews are already dangerously blurred.<\/p>\n

I am not blaming you for every antisemitic word spoken in New York. That would be another form of collective guilt, and I reject collective guilt in every form. But as mayor, you are responsible for the climate into which you speak.<\/p>\n

Jews cannot amputate Israel from our identity<\/p>\n

Criticize Netanyahu. Challenge his policies. Demand accountability. Speak forcefully for Palestinian civilians.<\/p>\n

But please do not flatten Israel into Netanyahu, or Jews into the Israeli government. Do not erase October 7, Hamas, the hostages, or the millions of Israelis who disagree with their prime minister yet still love their country. And do not ask Jews to amputate Israel from our identity before our pain is considered worthy of recognition.<\/p>\n

I met you because I believed people with profound disagreements could still speak to one another as human beings. I still believe that.<\/p>\n

I was right not to demonize you then, and I am right to challenge you now.<\/p>\n

I am not writing this to close a door. I am writing because I believe our meetings opened one.<\/p>\n

You have asked New Yorkers to see Palestinian humanity. I see Palestinian humanity. I am asking you, with the same moral seriousness, to see Israeli humanity and Jewish pain too.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Dov Bleich<\/p>\n

The writer is an Orthodox Jewish New York businessman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Mayor Mamdani,\u00a0 We have met a few times. After our first meeting, I wrote publicly that I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3862,3895,155,59,9,24,55,54,56,1479,15357,115012,82],"class_list":["post-303432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-antisemitism","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-palestinians","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-tisha-bav","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303432","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=303432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}