In October 2024, Zohran Mamdani launched his New York City mayoral campaign in relative obscurity. Half a year later, excitement about the state assemblymember from Queens is palpable. Mamdani, whose campaign is focused on housing justice and transit affordability, is the first in the race to hit its fundraising cap, raising $8 million dollars from more than 17,000 donors. A member of the Democratic Socialist of America, he boasts over 15,000 volunteer canvassers. Mamadani is now polling in second place, behind Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor who resigned in disgrace following sexual harassment allegations.

Meanwhile, Cuomo, who began a lackluster second act in Israel advocacy following his resignation from office, is attempting to make Israel and antisemitism central issues in the campaign. In a speech earlier this month at a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he blasted Mamdani, as well as fellow competitors Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams, for being insufficiently supportive of Israel, while asserting that anti-Zionism is unequivocally antisemitism. He also zeroed in on Mamdani’s “Not On Our Dime” legislation, which targets charities funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Mamdani has continued to stress an adherence to international law, and a commitment to the principle of the equality of all human life.

As the mayoral race enters its final months, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart interviewed Mamdani in a conversation that first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack. They discussed how Israel/Palestine is making its way into New York politics, how Mamdani would stand up to President Trump, and his detailed plan for public safety. Jewish Currents is a non-profit organization and does not endorse candidates for office. We hope that our listeners in New York City will vote in the primary on June 24th.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

FURTHER READING:

“Cuomo’s ‘most important issue,’” Jeff Coltin, Nick Reisman, and Emily Ngo, Politico

“Cuomo and Mamdani gain ground as Democratic primary turns into two-person race,” Adam Daly, amNY

“Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani Wants to End Columbia and NYU’s Tax-Exempt Status,” Sarah Wexler, Jacobin

“Feds seized $80 million in FEMA funds given to NYC to house migrants, city comptroller says,” Jennifer...

In a recent article in Jewish Currents, Jon Danforth-Appell proposes that the Jewish left is operating under a paradigm of what he calls “Zionist realism.” This idea draws on theorist Mark Fisher’s notion of “capitalist realism,” which describes the way capitalism makes it impossible to imagine alternative world structures; Zionist realism, in Danforth-Appell’s conception, similarly makes it difficult for Jews to separate from a received sense of Jewish collectivity, and imagine alternative futures. Danforth-Appell writes that particularist Jewish organizing, typified by the slogan “Not in Our Name,” reinforces a picture of Jews as a monolith, while contributing to an overemphasis on Jewish culpability for Israel’s actions. This approach may underemphasize “material processes of capital and geopolitics,” like the weapons industry’s bottom line and American interests in the Middle East. “What ultimately matters is not an abstract notion of Zionism as a totalizing spiritual contaminant upon the Jewish people,” he writes, “but the ways in which American Jews, alongside all other Americans, hold multiple kinds of material relationships to Israel.”

In the episode, Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel and associate editor Mari Cohen talk with Danforth-Appell about his article and the questions it raises. Even given the diversity among Jews, can we abandon collective complicity while so many Jews materially support Zionism? Why aren’t we seeing more mass anti-war organizing, where people can show up as Americans? And what are the limits of a Jewish politics of collective complicity?

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Texts Mentioned and Further Resources:

“Against Zionist Realism,” Jon Danforth-Appell, Jewish Currents

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher

“Canary Mission’s Newest Funders,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents

The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sarah Ahmed

“Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?,” Mari Cohen, Jewish Currents

Last week, Columbia capitulated to Trump’s extensive demands on the university, in hopes of recovering $400 million in government funding that was revoked by the Trump administration. Almost a week later, there is still no indication that Columbia will get the money back. The university has agreed to a long list of changes, among them the creation of a new 36-officer campus police force with the power to arrest students; the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism; broad commitments to disciplinary action for student protesters; and even the advancement of Columbia’s Tel Aviv Center. Strikingly, the university has placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department into what the Trump administration is referring to as “receivership,” appointing a new senior vice provost to exert control over the teaching of Israel/Palestine in particular, starting with the Center for Palestine Studies. Meanwhile, the university committed to “the expansion of intellectual diversity among faculty,” indicating that they are going to hire more Zionists to teach in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and in the School for International and Public Affairs. All of this follows the targeting and abduction of Columbia students, including Palestinian green card holder and student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in ICE detention, and Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student who was not significantly involved in protests and who fled to Canada to avoid detention after her visa was revoked.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of Columbia’s surrender, at a moment when the US appears to be in democratic freefall, and when academic freedom and the fundamental right to free speech hangs in the balance. Editor-at-large Peter Beinart and Columbia professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, who also serves as the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies, spoke just hours before this shocking development, but their conversation probes what’s been happening at Columbia and Barnard, and what’s at stake—both for the study of Israel/Palestine and for the future of higher ed. This conversation first appeared in the Beinart Notebook on Substack.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

ARTICLES MENTIONED AND FURTHER READING:

“‘Mahmoud Is Not Safe,’” Nadia Abu El-Haj, New York Review of Books

“The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters,” Natasha Lennard and Akela Lacy, The Intercept

Letter from Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention in Louisiana

“The Perils of Universities’ Unscholarly Antisemitism Reports,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents

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