NEW YORK — Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, a prominent US Jewish leader in New York City, said Monday that Jewish support for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was unsurprising, while calling for a more expansive view of Zionism in the Jewish community.
Cosgrove, the rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue, is a leading voice in the US Conservative community and a firm supporter of Israel.
Cosgrove, speaking at the biennial national assembly of the American Zionist Movement in Manhattan, said that Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, the rightward drift of the Israeli government, and intolerance in the American Jewish community toward differing political views have contributed to disaffection among liberal Jews.
“I may be constitutionally incapable of walking away from Israel, but others have and will continue to do so, before October 7th and all the more since. There’s a limit to the self-flagellating exercise of supporting a state that neither recognizes you nor represents your values,” Cosgrove said.
For Jews who grew up after the Holocaust, Israel’s claim to the land in the interest of survival was obvious, and Arab attacks on Israel sidelined concerns about Palestinian rights, Cosgrove said, adding that this has changed due to settlement expansion and the military rule of the West Bank, sometimes coupled with ignorance about the history of the conflict.
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He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the only prime minister many American Jews are familiar with due to his long tenure, is “beholden to extremist parties” whose policies go against the values of liberal US Jews.
“In the eyes of American Jews, the West Bank’s settlements and illiberal policies they represent pose a threat to Israel’s founding promise, democracy,” he said. “For a progressive American Jew, if the project of Israel is to provide a homeland and security to a historically vulnerable Jewish minority, then how can the state not respond to the needs of the vulnerable minority in its midst?”
“You may not like the fact that 30 percent of New York Jews voted for Mamdani, but you shouldn’t be surprised by it. For a liberal Zionist disillusioned by the Israeli government, Mamdani’s anti-Zionism is a difference of degree, not of kind. He understood the fissures of our community better than we ourselves did,” said Cosgrove, who is a harsh critic of Mamdani.
New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani listens as US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, November 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Cosgrove called on the American Jewish community to engage in “heshbon nefesh,” or a spiritual soul-searching.
“The argument that it’s somehow treasonous to criticize this or that Israeli policy simply doesn’t hold, as long as that criticism comes from a place of love, loyalty, and investment in the well-being of the State of Israel,” he said.
Cosgrove called for “a new chapter of American Zionism, infused with a sense of our internal pluralism, whereby we avoid the reductive and destructive tactic of labeling people with whom we disagree either as self-hating Jews or colonialist oppressors.”
He urged humility from American Jews who are removed from the realities of the Middle Eastern battlefield, and advocated both holding up the security of Israel, and empathy for Palestinian suffering.
“Against those who stand outside our tent, we need to hold the line. For those who seek to dwell in our tent, we must expand it. We need to do both,” he said, urging “an American Zionism that’s capacious enough to hold multiple views at once.”
Mamdani is a far-left anti-Israel activist who has identified as an anti-Zionist.
In Mamdani’s most recent Israel-related controversy, after a vitriolic protest at a synagogue last month, he condemned both the protesters and the synagogue for hosting an event that provided information to Jews seeking to move to Israel.
Mamdani appeared to claim that the synagogue, Park East, was violating international law by facilitating immigration to settlements. The group holding the event, Nefesh B’nefesh, does not direct Jews to settlements, but provides some information to those wishing to do so.
Also at the American Zionist Movement assembly, President Isaac Herzog warned about Mamdani, saying his statement about Park East Synagogue was “utterly anti-constitutional because of the right to practice your religion.”
Anti-Zionist protesters outside a New York City synagogue, November 19, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
Mamdani’s comment “worries me a lot. It should not have been in America,” Herzog said.
“I know America and we knew that there was antisemitism lurking around in various quarters, but it was never so apparent in public discourse,” he said.
Herzog also called for building bridges within the Jewish community, and between Israel and the American Jewish community.
“We have the most fantastic stories from Jews all over the world and a true lack of understanding from the two main Jewish communities in the world as to the stories of each other,” he said. “Listen to the other colors in the rainbow. Understand that they’re part and parcel of the nation.”
During the closing weeks of the New York City mayoral election race, Cosgrove waded into politics with a warning about Mamdani, saying that the candidate posed “a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community” in a Shabbat sermon.
Cosgrove cited Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “Globalize the intifada,” his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his vows to arrest Netanyahu, and his repeated accusations of genocide against Israel. Mamdani initially welcomed the intifada slogan, and later said he would discourage its use.
While exit polls released immediately after the race found that around one-third of Jews voted for Mamdani, a poll released last week of “connected” American Jews found that a majority believe that Mamdani will make the city’s Jews less safe and that they believe Mamdani is antisemitic.
Mamdani has leftist Jewish allies who vouch for him, and he has repeatedly pledged to protect Jewish communities and denounced antisemitism.
Mamdani is set to take office in January 2026 in the city, which has over a million Jewish residents, the largest Jewish community in the Diaspora and the biggest Jewish population in any city worldwide.
His stunning political rise and election victory marked a sea change for New York City’s Jews, who, for the first time, will be confronted with an anti-Zionist mayor whom many view as a threat.