New York City politics has never been a refuge for moral clarity, but even by its jaded standards, Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez’s endorsement of Zohran Mamdani for mayor on Sunday marks a breathtaking act of betrayal - not just of principle, but of the very people who helped shape his career.
As a former city councilman representing Washington Heights - a neighborhood with a proud and deeply rooted Jewish population - Rodriguez once campaigned as a man of unity, someone who bridged divides between the Dominican, Jewish, and other communities that coexist in the northern reaches of Manhattan. But by throwing his weight behind Mamdani, a politician whose anti-Israel extremism and flirtations with antisemitic rhetoric have roiled Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs, Rodriguez has shattered the moral standing he once possessed.
This is not politics as usual. This is moral abdication - dressed up in the language of progress, but soaked in opportunism.
Let us be clear: Rodriguez’s endorsement is not about ideology, policy, or principle. It is about survival - his own.
For months, insiders have whispered that Mamdani’s campaign privately assured Rodriguez that, should he become mayor, Rodriguez would keep his post as Transportation Commissioner. That promise, it seems, was enough to make the commissioner forget his own words, his own record, and his own promises to the Jewish community that once placed their trust - and their money - in him.
When Rodriguez ran for office in Washington Heights, he had no qualms about accepting generous contributions from Jewish landlords, developers, and community leaders - men and women who believed in his vision of a safer, more equitable city. He gladly took their checks, shook their hands, and spoke of “mutual respect and coexistence.”
Now, in endorsing Mamdani - the man who has vowed to “rid New York City of billionaires” (among other just as threatening remarks, ed.) in the name of socialist “income equity” - Rodriguez is effectively spitting in the faces of those same donors. Apparently, it is acceptable to take Jewish money when it funds your campaign, but equally acceptable to align yourself later with a candidate who demonizes the very people who helped build this city - including the Jewish philanthropists and business leaders who have been instrumental in revitalizing New York’s neighborhoods and sustaining its civic fabric.
That contradiction exposes the heart of Rodriguez’s political calculus: ambition first, loyalty forgotten.
By endorsing Zohran Mamdani, Rodriguez has made an explicit statement - whether he realizes it or not. He is declaring, by his silence and complicity, that it is acceptable for someone running to lead New York City to refuse condemnation of hate-filled chants such as “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea.”
He is endorsing a man who has publicly stated that he would order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal” should he ever visit New York City - a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Think about that: a mayor who dreams not of building bridges between communities, but of publicly humiliating the leader of the world’s only Jewish state, on Jewish soil, in the city where so many Holocaust survivors rebuilt their lives.
By standing beside Mamdani, Rodriguez is effectively saying, “This is fine.”
It is not fine. It is obscene.
The casual normalization of antisemitic rhetoric in New York’s political discourse should outrage every citizen who believes in the city’s core values of tolerance and coexistence. Rodriguez’s endorsement doesn’t just embolden Mamdani’s divisive ideology; it legitimizes it. And by doing so, Rodriguez betrays not only the Jewish people of Washington Heights, but every New Yorker who still believes that moral conviction should outweigh political convenience.
There was a time when Ydanis Rodriguez understood the danger of antisemitism.
Years ago, he personally met with Devorah Halberstam, the extraordinary mother of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old Crown Heights yeshiva student murdered by Islamic terrorist Rashid Baz on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994. That tragedy shook the city’s conscience. It was not a “random shooting,” as authorities initially claimed - it was a calculated act of terror against Jews.
Devorah Halberstam, through her unimaginable grief, fought for years to have her son’s murder recognized as an act of terrorism by the Department of Justice and the FBI. She became a tireless advocate for Jewish security and an unyielding voice against antisemitism in New York.
Rodriguez once looked her in the eye and promised vigilance - promised to stand up against the forces of hate that claimed Ari’s life.
What must Devorah Halberstam feel now, watching Rodriguez publicly embrace a candidate whose political allies have chanted slogans glorifying violence against Jews? What must she think as she sees him lend credibility to a man who excuses the moral barbarity of Hamas and cloaks his hatred of Israel in the language of “human rights”?
Her son’s blood was spilled on the streets of New York City - streets Rodriguez once vowed to make safe for all. His endorsement of Mamdani mocks that promise.
Let’s not mince words: Rodriguez’s endorsement is not only a betrayal - it is dangerous.
Mamdani’s radical agenda - shaped by a worldview that demonizes capitalism, Israel, and the very concept of Western democracy - has no place in City Hall. He is not merely “progressive.” He is an extremist whose sympathies align more with revolution than with reform. And by joining his cause, Rodriguez lends him a veneer of legitimacy.
When an elected official or cabinet member stands beside such a figure, it sends a chilling message: that antisemitism can be forgiven if it’s wrapped in the fashionable rhetoric of “equity” and “liberation.” It tells every Jewish New Yorker that their fears, their trauma, their history - from the pogroms of Europe to the terror on the Brooklyn Bridge - can be brushed aside for the sake of political convenience.
Rodriguez’s actions echo a broader trend within parts of the Democratic establishment, where moral courage has been replaced by moral relativism. To curry favor with the far-left, politicians like Rodriguez will overlook bigotry if it comes from the “right” ideological camp. They will speak of “justice” while aligning with those who vilify an entire people.
In doing so, they hollow out the meaning of progress itself.
The situation is galling. Rodriguez once styled himself as a champion of diversity - a man who understood that the strength of New York lies in its pluralism. He prided himself on his ability to work across communities, to mediate between the secular and the religious, the immigrant and the native-born, the affluent and the struggling.
And he did. But what does that legacy amount to now?
By endorsing Mamdani, Rodriguez has chosen not the path of bridge-building but of bridge-burning. He has turned his back on the Jewish donors who believed in him, on the Jewish families who stood by him, and on the moral compass that once guided his public life.
He cannot claim ignorance of Mamdani’s record. The Assemblyman’s views are well documented - his speeches, his tweets, his endorsements of slogans that romanticize terrorism. Rodriguez knows exactly who he is supporting. Did he decide that his political future mattered more than his principles?
New York City deserves better than leaders who barter their integrity for job security. The Jewish community deserves better than platitudes from politicians who speak of tolerance while endorsing those who preach division.
Rodriguez’s endorsement of Mamdani should not be forgotten, excused, or rationalized. It should be condemned - loudly, unequivocally, and publicly. Every civic leader, from uptown Manhattan to City Hall, should be forced to answer a simple question: Do you stand with those who excuse antisemitism, or with those who fight it?
As voters, New Yorkers must remember this betrayal when the next election cycle arrives. They must demand that those who seek public office do more than court communities when it is politically convenient - and abandon them when it no longer suits their ambitions.
Ydanis Rodriguez once claimed to represent the people of Washington Heights - Jews and Latinos, immigrants and lifelong New Yorkers alike. But with his endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, it seems that his loyalty lies not with the people who trusted him, but with the machinery of political expedience.
This is not merely personal. It is emblematic of a deeper decay in our political culture - a willingness to excuse hatred when it comes from “our side.”
The commissioner may be securing his position in a future Mamdani administration. In reality, he has forfeited something far more valuable: the trust of those who believed he would stand for decency when it mattered most.
And in the annals of New York’s political history, that will not be forgotten.
Ronald J. Edelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors and a lifelong Jewish activist, writer and speaker