Prominent NY rabbi says Mamdani ‘understood the fissures of our community’ better than Jews did

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, a prominent Jewish leader in New York City, says he is unsurprised by Jewish support for the anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdani, while calling for a different, more expansive “new chapter” of Zionism in the Jewish community.

Cosgrove, the rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue, is a leading voice in the US Conservative community and a firm supporter of Israel.

Cosgrove, speaking at the biennial national assembly of the American Zionist Movement, says that Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, the rightward drift of the Israeli government, and intolerance in the American Jewish community toward differing political views have contributed to disaffection among young Jews.

“I may be constitutionally incapable of walking away from Israel, but others have and will continue to do so, before October 7th and all the more since. There’s a limit to the self-flagellating exercise of supporting a state that neither recognizes you nor represents your values,” Cosgrove says.

For Jews who grew up after the Holocaust, Israel’s claim to the land in the interest of survival was obvious, and Arab attacks on Israel sidelined concerns about Palestinian rights. That has changed due to settlements and the West Bank occupation, sometimes coupled with ignorance about the history of the conflict, Cosgrove says.

“For a progressive American Jew, if the project of Israel is to provide a homeland and security to a historically vulnerable Jewish minority, then how can the state not respond to the needs of the vulnerable minority in its midst?” he says.

“You may not like the fact that 30 percent of New York Jews voted for Mamdani, but you shouldn’t be surprised by it. For a liberal Zionist disillusioned by the Israeli government, Mamdani’s anti-Zionism is a difference of degree, not of kind. He understood the fissures of our community better than we ourselves did,” says Cosgrove, who is a harsh critic of Mamdani.

Cosgrove calls on the American Jewish community to engage in “heshbon ha-nefesh,” or a spiritual soul-searching.

“The argument that it’s somehow treasonous to criticize this or that Israeli policy simply doesn’t hold, as long as that criticism comes from a place of love, loyalty, and investment in the well-being of the State of Israel,” he says.

Cosgrove calls for “a new chapter of American Zionism, infused with a sense of our internal pluralism, whereby we avoid the reductive and destructive tactic of labeling people with whom we disagree either as self-hating Jews or colonialist oppressors.”

He calls for humility from American Jews who are removed from the realities of the Middle Eastern battlefield, and advocates for both holding up the security of Israel and empathy for Palestinian suffering.

“Against those who stand outside our tent, we need to hold the line. For those who seek to dwell in our tent, we must expand it. We need to do both,” he says.