Robert Besser is a news editor who has worked in television and newspapers in the United States, Asia and the Middle East.
Be afraid, American Jews. For here is what the Jew-hating candidate, Zohran Mamdani, posted two weeks ago as a commemoration of the October 7 massacre:
“In the aftermath of that day, Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and the Israeli government launched a genocidal war: A death toll that now far exceeds 67,000, with the Israeli military bombing homes, hospitals, and schools into rubble…..The occupation and apartheid must end.”
In truth, what is happening in New York City is not so much about a Jew-hating Moslem-Socialist-Communist running to become mayor of New York City. Instead, the real story is whether the Jewish leaders and members of the Jewish community of New York City still possess the Jewish will to survive.
Before our eyes, the increasing likelihood is that an antisemite will become the next mayor of New York City. And this has become the supreme test of survival for the community, which confronts the city’s Jewish leaders. This election is, in fact, focused on whether the wealthiest Jewish community in our long history, with the most powerful institutions, will remain powerless in the face of this anti-Jewish evil and surrender their city and their future.
Indeed, today’s decisions by its leaders might well determine whether the Jewish community will remain intact or, in fact, flee New York.
On the other hand, perhaps there is no greater indication of the fast-moving death of the American Jewish diaspora community than the inability of New York Jews to prevent an antisemitic Moslem from being elected the next mayor.
In the earlier generations of those New York Jews, especially among the immigrants, there was an attitude that you had to do whatever it took to survive.
As Chicagoans, that meant waiting until polling stations had closed on election nights and helping to stuff ballot boxes for the Democrats, to ensure we could keep our city jobs and provide a home and food for our families.
And to protect our businesses, it meant handing cash-filled envelopes to city inspectors, policemen and, always, the Mob. Unbelievably, it also meant providing cash to judges prior to court cases being heard.
This was what we called doing business “the Chicago way.”
The point was, there was a belief that there was no choice but to behave in ways that were seemingly odious so our families would survive.
Returning to 2025, the New York Jewish leadership appears to be so blinded by their too-educated theories, fantasies and words, always words, that they are not performing the most critical tasks, such as coming together to rid New York of an antisemitic mayoral candidate.
Just look at the math. In the last three New York City mayoral races the winning Democratic candidate received between 760,000 to 790,000 votes.
Of note, in each election there were also some 300,000 Republican votes cast for the losing candidate.
In New York City there are approximately 700,000 Jews of voting age.
If the current Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, receives the normal 300,000 Republican votes plus another 400,000 Jewish votes, he would easily overcome the hateful Mamdani.
What needs to be done? Of course, the third candidate, Andrew Cuomo, must leave the race, so only Republican Sliwa opposes the Democratic Mamdani.
And to those Jewish leaders who say Cuomo will not leave, let’s return to an earlier era and simply ask him what his price will be to leave the race. What does he want? To become a judge? An ambassador? A university president? Cash?
And, if he still will not leave the race, thus ensuring the next mayor is a Jew-hater, then the Jewish leaders will have to behave like real men and clearly explain the facts of life to Cuomo.
For this is the way our ancestors operated to survive in America.
However, if the New York Jews continue to do nothing, the election of even more antisemitic progressive candidates will be duplicated throughout the United States and, ultimately, accelerate the Jews fleeing the Golden Medinah, America.
So what is stopping the New York Jews from saving themselves? Well, some 100-plus years after their ancestors clawed their place into American society, today’s Jews might be too educated, too pampered and too decadent to act decisively.
Even now, when the Jew-haters announce they are coming for them, the barely Jewish leaders of the New York community do not act.
Has comfort killed these Jews? Has it been too long since they knew the hunger of their great-grandparents and the life and death fighting of their World War II soldier-grandfathers?
Are we watching the end of the New York Jewish community? In their inaction, is the New York Jewish leadership ensuring that more leftist Jew-haters will be encouraged to run for city, state and federal offices throughout America?
The New York City mayoral election is scheduled for November 4. There is still time to act as our grandparents would. There is still time to do whatever must be done to prevent the election of Zohran Mamdani.
However, based upon what we have seen, the group of frightened rabbits calling themselves leaders of the New York Jewish community will do nothing meaningful and Mamdani will be elected.
And after New York is taken over by totalitarian leftists, it will become decidedly chillier for New York Jews. Jewish schools will again come under attack, since the left is always in a war of ideas that are one hundred percent opposed by Torah.
By sitting on their hands and allowing this antisemite to be elected, the New York Jewish leaders will give a green light to the left in New York to outlaw kosher slaughter and brit milah. The left will also demand that Jewish schools teach less Torah and more “modern subjects”. They will demand that non-Jewish teachers be hired, because this is human rights. They will demand that Jewish school children be taught that sexual perversion is normal, because this is human rights.
They will, non-stop, deliver orders to the Jews about how to best-educate Jewish children. And this will come from people whose government schools have only 20 to 30 percent of graduates able to read a book!
Tragically, all of this will be the fault of today’s New York Jewish leadership that has forgotten how tenuous is the life of the Jews.
Listen up Jewish leaders of New York. Stopping Mamdani is about protecting your children and grandchildren. And about recognizing all those in your family’s past who struggled to ensure you could today live your pampered lives.
If the Jew-hating Mamdani becomes the next mayor, this will be the worst failure of American Jewish leadership since they stood by and watched as their families in Europe were exterminated by Germany.
In the coming weeks, if you New York Jewish leaders cannot meet the test, cannot do whatever you must do to stop Mamdani, then you will be justifiably cursed by Jewish history as having done nothing as the nails were being pounded into the American Jewish coffin.