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The Company He Keeps: Why Zohran Mamdani’s Candidacy Demands Jewish Scrutiny

by Ram ben Ze’ev


The Company He Keeps: Why Zohran Mamdani’s Candidacy Demands Jewish Scrutiny
The Company He Keeps: Why Zohran Mamdani’s Candidacy Demands Jewish Scrutiny

New York is no ordinary city. It is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel — a city scarred by Islamist terror and yet a city whose compassion often leads it to forget what that terror cost. Now, with Zohran Mamdani rising as the presumptive mayoral winner, New Yorkers are being asked to overlook a record that demands scrutiny.


Mamdani, the son of Ugandan immigrants of Indian descent and a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” has turned his associations into a badge of honour. Among them is Imam Siraj Wahhaj (born Jeffrey Kearse; March 11, 1950) of Brooklyn’s Masjid At-Taqwa — a man the FBI identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj also served as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” convicted of conspiring to wage war against the United States. These are not rumours; they are matters of federal record. Mamdani’s decision to embrace and publicise that association should alarm any voter who values the safety and moral fabric of this city. Wahhaj once described America as a “garbage can.”


Ordinarily, with public religious or political figures—especially those as visible as Wahhaj—one expects to find basic biographical details such as parents’ names, siblings, and early schooling recorded somewhere in the public record. In Wahhaj’s case, that absence stands out. The public narrative begins abruptly at his conversion from Christianity in the late 1960s, with almost no trace of Jeffrey Kearse before that. The continued lack of accessible information, together with the way his followers and allied institutions avoid or omit those details, reinforces the perception that aspects of his early life are being deliberately concealed. Yet Mamdani continues to support and promote this man.



Then there is Mamdani’s own rhetoric. He has spoken openly of shifting the property-tax burden toward “richer and whiter neighbourhoods.” However one feels about tax reform, turning fiscal policy into a racial exercise divides the very city a mayor must unite. It isn’t progressivism — it’s provocation wrapped in populism.


His mocking of Andrew Cuomo for not visiting a mosque during the campaign season is equally revealing. The implication was that political legitimacy now requires religious pandering. It is one thing to engage with all communities; it is another to shame others for not performing piety on cue—particularly when the principles espoused by followers of that faith are often antithetical to the founding principles of the United States. Even Thomas Jefferson, who believed that Muslims, like Jews and Christians, should be free to live and worship without state interference, recognised the danger of appeasement. When confronted by Islamic states acting as aggressors, he responded firmly—not as a religious adversary, but in defence of American sovereignty.


Perhaps most troubling is Mamdani’s flirtation with the slogan “globalise the intifada.” For Jewish New Yorkers, those words are not a metaphor — they are a threat. Only after public backlash did Mamdani attempt to distance himself from the phrase, but moral clarity delayed is moral clarity denied.


When questioned on his views of Israel’s right to defend itself, Mamdani described Israel’s actions as “genocide.” A mayor does not set foreign policy, but words like these inflame tensions in a city already witnessing record antisemitic violence. Leadership requires restraint. What we see instead is a man who treats outrage as currency.


And yet, here lies the most astonishing incongruence of all: Mamdani could not have reached this stage of political ascent without the support of significant segments of New York’s Jewish community during the primaries. Whether out of misplaced idealism, political fatigue, or the illusion that shared “progressive” causes outweigh fundamental moral differences, this alliance is both bewildering and deeply troubling. How could a people who have carried the scars of exile, persecution, and terror lend their voices to elevate a man who openly aligns himself with those who once stood beside our destroyers? This is not compassion — it is confusion.



The Torah warns in דברים (Devarim) 17:15: “שום תשים עליך מלך... לא תוכל לתת עליך איש נכרי.” The verse commands us not to appoint a foreigner — one who rejects the Divine covenant — as ruler over us. While America is not a theocracy, the principle remains: we are accountable for the leadership we endorse, and for whether it honours or endangers Jewish life.


It is not enough to say, “he supports tenants’ rights” or “he’s young and passionate.” The question is moral: would we entrust our safety, our children’s education, and an American city’s future to a man who venerates those who stood beside enemies of civilisation? If the answer is yes, then we have learned nothing from history.


New York must demand answers before it hands over City Hall. Until Zohran Mamdani publicly renounces his extremist associations, disavows hate slogans without hesitation, and proves that he can defend Jewish life rather than appease those who threaten it, Jewish voters should withhold their trust — and their vote.



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