{"id":312778,"date":"2026-08-03T19:50:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312778\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T19:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:50:21","slug":"tel-aviv-vice-mayor-guy-avner-challenges-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-to-box-for-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312778\/","title":{"rendered":"Tel Aviv Vice Mayor Guy Avner challenges NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani to box for charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tel Aviv Vice Mayor Guy Avner<\/a> challenged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to a boxing match, citing the American mayor\u2019s anti-Israel statements and accusing him of fomenting hatred towards the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani, you’ve been saying a lot of horrible stuff, creating a lot of hatred towards the Jewish people,\u201d Avner said in the video posted to Instagram on Monday. \u201cAs the Vice Mayor of Tel Aviv, I\u2019m going to stand strong. I love America, I love New York City, but you, Mamdani, you’re bad news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avner then issued the challenge, telling Mamdani<\/a>, \u201cYou and me, in the ring, charity event.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the proceeds of the event could all go to a charity of the New York City Mayor\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you’re going to stop dissing the Jewish people and the great state of Israel,\u201d Avner added. \u201cI’m coming for you. There’s nowhere to run. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s time. You and me, face to face. Let’s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech to mark 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

In the caption attached to the video, Avner encouraged viewers to spread the video around until Mamdani accepted the challenge.<\/p>\n

“We can have it in [Tel Aviv] – don’t worry you won’t get arrested,” Avner wrote, a reference to comments Mamdani made to the New York Times in July when he said his administration was considering detaining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York for the September UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n

The New York City mayor later walked back the threat, admitting that his administration did not have the authority to execute the International Criminal Court\u2019s (ICC) arrest warrant for Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Jerusalem Post following the publication of his video, Avner said he decided to challenge the NYC mayor to a boxing match because \u201cboxing is about facing your opponent directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani has repeatedly thrown punches at Israel, the IDF<\/a>, and many Jews around the world with his rhetoric,\u201d Avner continued. \u201cInstead of fighting through headlines and social media, I invited him to step into the ring, where there are rules, respect, and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

TLV Mayor Avner: ‘Words have consequences’<\/p>\n

Asked why he chose this moment to issue the challenge, Avner said \u201cwords have consequences\u201d and pointed to the elevated rates of antisemitic incidents around the world, a tide that rose precipitously in the wake of the Hamas-led massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when antisemitism is rising around the world<\/a>, and Israel continues to face existential threats, public leaders have a responsibility to lower the temperature, not inflame it,\u201d Avner said. \u201cI felt it was important to draw a line and challenge the normalization of rhetoric that many Jews experience as deeply hostile.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tel Aviv Vice Mayor Guy Avner challenged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to a boxing match, citing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3862,4629,8538,3956,60,9,24,56,63,65,64,16530,15357,82],"class_list":["post-312778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-antisemitism","tag-boxing","tag-idf","tag-instagram","tag-israel","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-tel-aviv","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312778","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=312778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}