{"id":311976,"date":"2026-08-02T16:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311976\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T16:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:20:08","slug":"why-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdanis-tisha-bav-wishes-are-so-ironic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/311976\/","title":{"rendered":"Why NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Tisha B\u2019Av wishes are so ironic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year on Tisha B\u2019Av, I watch a film called Conspiracy, a quiet, chilling HBO drama from 25 years ago about a single meeting: the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials sat around a table and calmly agreed on the mechanics of annihilating the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

We know almost exactly what was said in that room because one set of minutes survived. What strikes me every time I watch it is the evil, real and staggering<\/a>, and alongside it the arrogance. These were men utterly convinced of their own permanence, certain that history was on their side, certain that the Jews would simply vanish.<\/p>\n

Within a few years, nearly every one of them was dead, disgraced, or on trial for their lives. The empire they built to erase us collapsed while we are still here, still praying, still building, still remembering.<\/p>\n

This year, Tisha B\u2019Av<\/a> fell during a moment when that same old arrogance is dressing itself up in new clothes. Zohran Mamdani, now the mayor of a city home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, has made a habit of accusing Israel\u2019s prime minister of crimes he has no authority to prosecute and no evidence to support. He surely knows the charge is absurd.<\/p>\n

What matters more is what it signals to his followers: that the Jewish state, and by extension the Jewish people, are the villains of the story.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York Mayor Zohran Mamdani laughs as he exits the room following his address commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America at City Hall in New York, NY, US, July 3, 2026. (credit: Anna Connors\/Pool via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

And then came his Tisha B\u2019Av greeting to New York\u2019s Jews. A day set aside for two thousand<\/a> years to mourn the destruction of our Temples and our exile from our land, and Mamdani could not bring himself to mention Israel at all. Not once. On the one day built entirely around Jewish longing for Jerusalem, our elected officials could not say the word.<\/p>\n

Justice and liberation are true \u2013 but only if you\u2019re not a Jew<\/p>\n

It is a message, and one Jews have heard in different accents for two thousand years. Haman could not tolerate a people who kept their own laws and answered to the King above the king.<\/p>\n

The architects of Wannsee could not tolerate a people whose survival mocked their theories of racial destiny. Today\u2019s version wears the language of justice and liberation, but the instinct underneath it is old and familiar: single out the Jew, question his loyalty, deny his history, and hope the crowd follows.<\/p>\n

I want to be honest about something. Rhetoric like this carries real weight. Words like these have preceded violence before, and we have already seen the streets of New York turn ugly. Arrogance is dangerous, and we would be foolish to pretend otherwise. We have to speak up, organize, and stand with the friends who stand with us.<\/p>\n

But Tisha B\u2019Av teaches something else too, something I think about every time the credits roll on that film.<\/p>\n

Every regime, every mob, every mayor or minister who has tried to write the Jews out of history has failed. Babylon fell. Rome fell. The men at that table in Wannsee fell, and fell fast. Our connection to the land of Israel, forged three thousand years ago and mourned every year on this day, has outlasted every single one of them.<\/p>\n

Mamdani can leave Israel out of a tweet<\/a>. He cannot leave Israel out of who we are. Our children will still turn toward Jerusalem when they pray. Our fast days will still end, as they always have, with hope rather than despair.<\/p>\n

The lesson of Tisha B\u2019Av is a track record. Empires built on our disappearance have a way of disappearing themselves. We are still here. We will still be here. And so, please God, will Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

The writer is the international CEO of Aish, a global Jewish educational movement. He formerly served as eastern director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where he oversaw the Museum of Tolerance in New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year on Tisha B\u2019Av, I watch a film called Conspiracy, a quiet, chilling HBO drama from 25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[117965,15306,90263,117963,117964,4364,9,24,56,63,65,64,299,24104,117962,115012,82],"class_list":["post-311976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-babylon","tag-diaspora-jews","tag-jerusalem","tag-mount-temple","tag-nazi-war-criminals","tag-nazism","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-opinion","tag-rome","tag-temple-mount","tag-tisha-bav","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311976","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=311976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}