Finally yr’s mayoral interfaith breakfast, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum got here outfitted with a literal message.
It was an indication that learn, “Mr. Mayor: present mercy to our immigrant associates!” Kleinbaum, a distinguished progressive chief who’s senior rabbi emerita of the LGBTQ+ synagogue Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, held the signal above her head throughout Eric Adams’ remarks, silently protesting a mayor who she felt was letting down the immigrant neighborhood following Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A yr later, at Zohran Mamdani’s first interfaith breakfast on Friday, Kleinbaum returned — however and not using a signal.
There was no want for an illustration, Kleinbaum mentioned in an interview, as a result of she didn’t must put stress on Mamdani.
“I’m prepared to work with any mayor who’s mayor of our metropolis — and I’m thrilled that Mayor Mamdani’s values align with my non secular conviction that immigrants are a necessary a part of our metropolis,” she mentioned.
Mamdani’s interfaith breakfast introduced greater than 300 non secular leaders to the New York Public Library’s flagship constructing for scrambled eggs and occasional. A couple of of them spoke or led prayers. The main target was largely on defending immigrants amid ICE’s rising presence within the nation, a presence that Mamdani mentioned is antithetical to the biblical idea of “welcoming the stranger.”
The morning additionally embodied the shifting panorama underneath Mamdani’s mayorship, wherein progressive Jews and Jewish organizations are enjoying a extra central function in New York Metropolis politics. These teams vary in viewpoint from liberal Zionist to the anti-Zionist ones that Mamdani protested alongside throughout his time as a State Meeting member.
“This specific breakfast felt very genuine,” mentioned Rabbi Emily Cohen, non secular chief of the Reconstructionist West Finish Synagogue, in an interview. “From the very get-go, the director of the Public Library was capable of communicate out about ICE and the significance of studying. In previous years, even that speech has felt very restricted in its scope.”
This yr’s sponsors included left-wing group Jews for Racial and Financial Justice, the liberal-leaning Nexus Challenge and the New York Jewish Agenda, the progressive group whose director, Phylisa Knowledge, was lately tapped to guide Mamdani’s Workplace to Fight Antisemitism.
Main Jewish organizations together with UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Neighborhood Relations Council of New York and the Anti-Defamation League didn’t sponsor, after having executed so every of the final three years.
Jewish Voice for Peace, the anti-Zionist group, was represented on the breakfast for the primary time for the reason that annual custom was began by Mike Bloomberg. Rabbi Andy Kahn, director of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, and Jamie Beran, who heads the progressive group Bend the Arc, have been additionally in attendance.
In the meantime, Cohen delivered remarks wherein she referred to as JFREJ her “political dwelling” and recounted being arrested at a current ICE protest — a danger that she felt compelled to take “on a non secular stage.”
“Faith is commonly characterised as a house for the best, however I’m regularly impressed by the non secular left,” mentioned Cohen, who was a part of the “Rabbis for Zohran” marketing campaign video.
Mamdani framed his speech across the thought of “welcoming the stranger,” and mentioned that individuals can “depend on our religion to supply an embrace of each other.” He provided an instance of how the Hebrew Bible calls for safeguarding weak neighbors.
“I consider Exodus 23:9, the phrases of the Torah, ‘Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the guts of a stranger, seeing ye have been strangers within the land of Egypt,’” Mamdani mentioned. “Few have stood so steadfast alongside the persecuted as Jewish New Yorkers.”
Zohran Mamdani speaks throughout his first Interfaith Breakfast, an annual custom hosted by the mayor. (Joseph Strauss)
Mamdani named examples of Jewish allyship in Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, a pair of civil rights activists who have been killed by the Ku Klux Klan; and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched alongside Martin Luther King. He additionally named Yip Harburg, who wrote “Someplace Over the Rainbow” and, Mamdani mentioned, “uplifted Individuals ready on bread traces in the course of the Nice Melancholy.”
The mayor had begun his remarks by shouting out the handful of elected officers in attendance together with Brad Hoylman Sigal, the Jewish Manhattan borough president.
The loudest ovations have been reserved for the politicians occupying essentially the most progressive lane: Brad Lander, the previous metropolis comptroller who’s Mamdani’s most distinguished Jewish ally; and Shahana Hanif, a Metropolis Council member in Brooklyn whose participation in pro-Palestinian protests has drawn backlash from some constituents.
Mamdani additionally acknowledged the absence of Arthur Schneier, a 95-year-old Orthodox rabbi who was supposed to guide a prayer however was absent as a result of an sickness, and provided his “hopes for a fast restoration.”
Schneier is the senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue, which was the positioning of a pro-Palestinian protest in November that sparked efforts to ban protests outdoors homes of worship, and intensified fears of rising antisemitism underneath an anti-Zionist mayor. A Mamdani spokesperson responded by saying that he “discouraged” the language used on the protest, and that the Nefesh b’Nefesh occasion was a misuse of a “sacred house.” Schneier’s son, Rabbi Marc Schneier, mentioned on Thursday that he would boycott the breakfast due to Mamdani’s anti-Zionism.
Jewish illustration on the breakfast was not restricted to progressive or outwardly pro-Mamdani teams.
Rabbis Joseph Potasnik and Diana Gerson from the New York Board of Rabbis have been seated on the mayor’s desk, regardless of not sponsoring the occasion. JCRC’s vice chairman for the Middle for Shared Society, Matt Abrams Gerber, was additionally current. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, who spoke out towards Mamdani in the course of the election, attended, as did Flatbush Jewish Neighborhood Coalition chairman Josh Mehlman.
“At a time when antisemitism is rising precipitously, it’s vital to indicate up with the interfaith neighborhood,” Potasnik mentioned after the occasion. “We are able to’t struggle antisemitism alone.”
Immigrant safety was the problem on the forefront of the breakfast, fairly than different hot-button points like combating types of hate like antisemitism and Islamophobia. Mamdani introduced an govt order that will push again towards ICE, and pamphlets instructing immigrants on their rights have been distributed in 10 languages, together with Yiddish. It was a distinction from final yr’s breakfast, the place the mayor’s solely acknowledgement of immigrants’ security got here when he learn Kleinbaum’s signal.
“I believe that every administration has its personal tradition and its personal vibe,” mentioned Cohen. “The vibe of the earlier administration was not in step with the values and priorities of my beliefs — and the present administration is.”
