Zohran Mamdani and the great American Jewish reckoning

New York state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s ascent to political prominence as the mayor-elect of New York City has illuminated the fault lines long running beneath the surface of American Jewry. To even refer to it as a single “community” is, by now, an anachronism.

What was once a network of shared fate and memory has splintered into ideological camps, each convinced the other has betrayed the essence of Jewish life in America. American Jewry’s vulnerability now exists on two levels: internal and external.

Internally, the community is fracturing along three intertwined axes—support for Israel, level of religious observance and political orientation.

Once a bastion of liberal values and progressive ideals, Jewish progressives now find themselves unwelcome in spaces increasingly hostile