Some Jewish Democrats in US Congress raise concerns about Mamdani’s anti-Israel stances

JTA — Some Jewish Democrats in Congress, including the prominent House member Debbie Wasserman Schultz, are coming out to condemn Zohran Mamdani for his record of anti-Israel stances just weeks after prominent Jewish Democrats in New York endorsed the upstart mayoral candidate.

Mamdani, a state assemblyman who shocked the political system by winning New York’s Democratic primary for mayor last month, has previously endorsed the boycott Israel movement, known as BDS, and has also drawn pushback for refusing to condemn the popular pro-Palestinian protest slogan “globalize the intifada.”

“To not be willing to condemn the term ‘globalize the intifada,’ it just demonstrates his callous disregard for antisemitism, terrorist activity… Anyone that I care about couldn’t possibly distance themselves from him more,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who was the first Jewish woman elected to represent Florida in Congress, told The Hill. “It’s really terribly disturbing and potentially dangerous.”

Wasserman Schultz’s sentiments were echoed by fellow Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who represents an area of Florida with a large population of Jews.

“I think he’s wrong on all those things,” Moskowitz told The Hill. “If he can’t tell people ‘globalizing the intifada’ — if he can’t say that that’s antisemitic, then obviously he’s going to continue to add to the problem, not deflate it.”

The word “intifada” is commonly directly translated to “uprising,” and but most Jews associate it with two periods of deadly Palestinian terror attacks in Israel from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.

Mamdani has also promoted academic boycotts of Israeli universities and has vowed to try to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli premier visits New York under his watch.

Rep. Greg Landsman, an Ohio Democrat who is Jewish, said Mamdani’s stances were a “huge problem” in a statement to The Hill.

“It is happening in the context of a violent surge in antisemitism. Two Jews murdered here in Washington, D.C., at an event that some of us would have gone to had we not been voting, and then in Boulder, where Jews were set on fire,” he said. “And now this. It’s definitely something that we’re worried about.”

National Jewish Democratic leaders are also engaged around the New York City race. “Jewish Americans in New York and beyond are concerned about his position on Israel and his continued defense of this phrase, which we hear as a call to violence,” Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told The Hill in an interview.

“And at a moment of rising antisemitism, frankly it’s unacceptable for him to continue to defend this phrase if he wants to be mayor of the largest Jewish population of any city in the world.”

The comments reflect the fact that the local race is resonating far beyond New York City’s borders.

While some Jewish Democrats have been quick to criticize the candidate, others on Capitol Hill — including (Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerry Nadler from New York — have praised or endorsed him, underscoring that Mamdani’s candidacy is emerging as something of a proxy for Israel’s role in the future of the Democratic Party.

A survey released last week by the American Pulse polling firm found that half of New York voters said they were less likely to vote for Mamdani after learning of his position on BDS and the “globalize the intifada” slogan while a third said his positions made them more likely to vote for him.

But the proportion of voters who were turned off by his positions was far lower among Democrats than Republicans.

Jamie Raskin, the prominent Jewish House representative from Maryland, told The Hill that Democrats should support Mamdani.

“Our position is we’ve got to globalize human rights and peace and security for every nation and every people, and everything I’ve heard from him was consistent with that,” Raskin said. “’Globalize the intifada’ is not his slogan.”

Rep. Dan Goldman, a Jewish New York Democrat, did not endorse Mamdani but wrote in a statement to The Hill that he had explained to the 33-year-old candidate that he must “take proactive steps to protect all New Yorkers.”

“Zohran and I share a desire to lift up vulnerable New Yorkers and make the city more affordable and safe,” Goldman said. “To that end, I explained why Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe in the city and that, as he continues this campaign, he must not only condemn anti-Jewish hate and calls for violence, but make clear that as mayor he would take proactive steps to protect all New Yorkers and make us secure.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.