Mamdani faces backlash after condemning attack on New York synagogue

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced a backlash Saturday after condemning Friday's antisemitic attack on Manhattan's Central Synagogue, with critics accusing the anti-Zionist mayor of helping foster the climate of hostility toward Jews he was now promising to combat.

"I am horrified by the assault at Central Synagogue during services today," Mamdani wrote after the attack, saying his administration would do "everything in our power to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe."

The criticism spread quickly online following Mamdani's statement. Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, responded by resurfacing the mayor's own words: "When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF." Mamdani made the remark while arguing that activists should make the Palestinian cause "hyper-local" by connecting it to domestic political struggles in the United States.

Israel's consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, responded by calling the assault "a direct result of Mayor Mamdani's sustained campaign of incitement" and accusing the mayor of failing to protect the city's Jews. Asked about the accusation at a Queens event Saturday, Mamdani did not address it directly, saying he was focused on "delivering for Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs" and pointing to the work of his Office to Combat Antisemitism.

The criticism carried particular resonance because Central Synagogue's own senior rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, had warned Mamdani less than a month earlier about the possible consequences of his rhetoric. In a July 23 statement addressed to the mayor, Buchdahl urged him to stop rhetoric that "demonizes Jews and the Jewish state" and "helps create the climate in which threats and violence flourish."

Just four days before the attack, 10 New York rabbis also met Mamdani at City Hall to raise concerns about his rhetoric on Israel and its impact on Jewish New Yorkers. Rabbi Rachel Timoner told NBC New York that she warned the mayor that presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a simple story with Jews cast as the villain could prove dangerous.

Former US defense official Ezra Cohen accused the mayor of acting like an "arsonist" who had encouraged the slogan "globalize the intifada" before pretending to come to the rescue when violence followed.

Pro-Israel activist Aviva Klompas similarly said Mamdani was "horrified" only after spending months demonizing Israel, while actor and activist Yuval David said condemnations of antisemitism meant little when paired with the mayor's politics and associations.

Mamdani, a longtime supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, drew intense criticism during his mayoral campaign after initially declining to condemn the slogan "globalize the intifada," although he later said he would discourage its use.

More recently, he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "the architect of a horrific genocide," saying he would explore options to arrest him during his next visit to New York before eventually dropping the idea. In June he referred to AIPAC while describing political opponents as "monsters."

Police said Larry Montes, 46, disrupted Shabbat services at Central Synagogue on Friday evening before striking a 63-year-old congregant, damaging synagogue property and spitting at and headbutting a security guard as he was being removed. He was arrested at the scene and charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime and criminal mischief as a hate crime, among other offenses. No one was seriously injured.

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that Montes later told police, "F--- the Jews."