This did not happen in a vacuum.<\/p>\n
I love New York City too much to pretend otherwise. New York City is America\u2019s city. It is the center of global enterprise, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and a place where millions of people have built their lives on the promise that hard work and talent are rewarded regardless of who you are or where you came from.<\/p>\n
That promise is now under direct threat \u2013 not just from crime, but from the political climate that enables it.<\/p>\n
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States of America at City Hall in New York, NY, US, July 3, 2026. (credit: Anna Connors\/Pool via REUTERS)<\/p>\n
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has spent months excoriating Israel from his official platforms, calling AIPAC \u201cmonsters,\u201d<\/a> refusing to condemn the phrase, \u201cGlobalize the Intifada,\u201d and backing congressional candidates whose campaigns were built on anti-Israel rhetoric.<\/p>\n His viral video accusing Israel of war crimes, released days before the stabbing, was viewed nearly 90 million times. Jewish organizations warned immediately that it placed New Yorkers at risk. They were right.<\/p>\n The silence and failure of my Democratic opponent and many other politicians in our city to quickly, and in no uncertain terms, condemn the mayor\u2019s rhetoric before the violence that ensued is telling. Enough is enough.<\/p>\n I am not running to make a political point. I am running because I believe in New York City, and the promise and opportunity it represents to all of us, and to the world. I am running because New York City cannot afford to become a place where anyone lives in fear<\/a>, and where Jewish residents are afraid to walk home from synagogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n I believe that leadership requires saying difficult things clearly, without hedging, without qualification, and without one eye on the political winds. At a time when antisemitism is rising in our streets, on our campuses, and across our culture, silence is not leadership. And neither is looking away.<\/p>\n Will New York stand and fight for equality and justice for its residents \u2013 all of them?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n New York\u2019s 12th Congressional District, which includes the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, and Midtown Manhattan, among other areas, is one of the most Jewish districts in America. It is also, right now, one of the most important races in the country.<\/p>\n The question voters will answer in November is not simply one of Republican vs Democrat. It is whether a district that has been home to Jewish life for generations will send a voice to Washington that will stand unambiguously for its community and right to live in peace, or whether it will ratify the political forces that have made that community feel increasingly unwelcome in the party it has supported for decades.<\/p>\n I am a corporate attorney and economist. I have advised financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. I have worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC, and spent time at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the Bank of Israel under Stanley Fischer in Jerusalem, and the Bank for International Settlements in Basel.<\/p>\n I understand capital, regulation, and the real-world consequences of policy choices. I know what it means when firms decide where to domicile, where to expand, and where to create jobs \u2013 and I know that a city governed by fear and ideological extremism does not win those decisions.<\/p>\n But I am also someone who has stood in Jerusalem. Who has seen what it means to build and defend something precious against forces that would destroy it? And who understands, deeply, that the security of Jewish communities in New York and the security of Israel are not separate issues. They are the same issue, viewed from different angles.<\/p>\n New York\u2019s Jewish community deserves a representative who will never have to be asked to \u201cbring down the temperature,\u201d because the temperature was never raised in the first place. Someone who sees the rise of antisemitism not as a talking point but as a moral emergency, and someone who has a plan to actually combat antisemitism<\/a> at its root source. Someone who will stand with Israel, not when it is convenient, but because it is right.\u00a0<\/p>\n Manhattan is a long way from Jerusalem. But when a Jewish man is stabbed, leaving his synagogue on Tisha B\u2019Av on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side, the distance collapses. The ancient words become immediate. The mourning becomes present tense.<\/p>\n New York City is America\u2019s city. It must remain a city where Jewish life, and all life, flourishes, in the synagogues, on the streets, and in the halls of Congress. I intend to make sure it does.<\/p>\n L\u2019Shana Haba\u2019ah B\u2019Yerushalayim. This year, we fight for Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n The writer is the Republican nominee for New York\u2019s 12th Congressional District. She holds a BS in economics from MIT and is a graduate of Harvard Law School.<\/p>\n