Mayor Mamdani’s decision to brand AIPAC ‘monsters’ and accuse the organization of using ‘dark money’ to ‘turn us against one another’ in order to preserve a ‘status quo of immorality’ is not criticism of lobbying. It is the open deployment of classic antisemitic conspiracy theories from the office of the Mayor of New York City. Until recently, such hatred emanating directly from any mayor was unthinkable. Under Mayor Mamdani, it has become the new normal.
The Mayor again makes clear what many suspected for a while: he harbors a deep and personal hatred of Jews and of the Jewish state. When he was a political nobody, that hatred could be dismissed as the pathetic and irrelevant rantings of someone with no power. Now that he sits in Gracie Mansion, the same hatred carries the full weight and authority of the Mayor’s office.
Antisemites hate Jews regardless of circumstances. They do not need AIPAC as an excuse. They hate Jews for being Jews. What they do need is permission, normalization, and a sense that their bigotry is socially and politically acceptable. Mayor Mamdani again and again gives them exactly that. In this case he does so by dehumanizing a lobbyist group that is associated with Jews in America as ‘monsters.' He is reviving the oldest tropes about Jewish money and secret control; he has told every antisemite in New York and beyond that their hatred has a friend in City Hall. Notice, he doesn't call on changes from the legislature as it pertains to lobbyists. He simply makes AIPAC the target of all his criticisms because of its association with Jews and the State of Israel.
His refusal to retract these remarks when directly challenged is not courage. It is a confirmation. He had the opportunity to walk it back, to say he misspoke, to clarify that he was not trafficking in antisemitic stereotypes. He chose instead to double down. That choice reveals everything.
It is grotesque hypocrisy for the Mayor to posture as a leader who wishes Jewish New Yorkers well or who governs all communities fairly and with concern for their safety while simultaneously unleashing the precise rhetoric that has historically preceded violence against Jews. One does not get to demonize groups that people associate with Jews, and then pretend your hands are clean when synagogues are vandalized, Jewish students are harassed, and Jews are attacked on our streets.
New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. We will not quietly accept a Mayor who mainstreams antisemitic conspiracy theories and then hides behind the claim that he was only criticizing a ‘lobby.’ That lie is as old as it is dangerous.
I will continue to speak plainly and passionately against antisemitism, whether it comes from the street or from the Mayor’s office. I will not be gaslit. I will not be intimidated. And nobody should pretend that words this reckless and hateful are anything other than what they are. Jewish lives are being imperiled by the Mayor’s antisemitic rhetoric. Any Jewish blood spilled will be on his hands. The Mayor speaks of monsters. It is he who is the monster.
James “Jim" F. Gennaro is a Democratic member of the New York City Council, where he represents the 24th Council District and chairs the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency & Waterfronts.