Mamdani condemns swastikas drawn at NYC school days after rabbi accuses him of crossing line ‘into antisemitism'

A daytime after Zohran Mamdani made chronicle by becoming New York City’s first Muslim mayor-elect, the 34-year-old took to X to condemn an incident of antisemitism at a Brooklyn school. This comes shortly after prominent New York City Angela Buchdahl accused Mamdani of contributing “to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism.”

X user Isaac Choua shared photos on social media, claiming that someone drew swastikas on the walls and glass of a Jewish day school in Brooklyn. “My community’s yeshiva (Jewish day school) in Brooklyn, where I taught years ago,” Choua wrote.

Mamdani reposted it, calling the act “disgusting.” “This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city. As Mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city,” he wrote.

Shortly before Mamdani’s win, Manhattan’s Central Synagogue’s Rabbi Buchdahl, one of the country’s most prominent Reform rabbis, said of Mamdani during a speech, “His shocking 2023 accusation—”When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF”—crosses the line clearly into antisemitism, not only demonizing Israelis, but echoing the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews across the world are the root cause of our problems here. His false claims of genocide, his reluctance to label Hamas a terrorist organization, his unwillingness to condemn phrases like “globalize the Intifada,” and absolute opposition to Israel as a Jewish state contributes to an atmosphere of denigration and ostracization of Jewish people everywhere.”

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Buchdahl accused Mamdani of pledging to “shut down the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which broke up the violent protests at Columbia, which could mean that when Jews are under attack, we may not feel protected.” “It is hard not to fear that the environment we witnessed for our Jewish children on Columbia’s campus after October 7th could be a preview of the way that New York City could start feeling for all Jews. For so many in this community, this is reason enough to determine your vote unequivocally,” she added.

Read More | Zohran Mamdani faces wrath of angry protestor at Foley Square in NYC Park, blasted as ‘anti-Semite’ | Watch

Mamdani won the election on Tuesday, November 4, saying in his victory speech, “Tonight, New York has stepped from the old into the new.”

Quoting from Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, Mamdani added, “Standing before you, I remember the words of Jawaharlal Nehru. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

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