More than 700 rabbis from across the United States have signed an open letter calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to apologize after he described the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “monsters” who use “millions in dark money” to maintain influence.
The letter, organized by the pro-Zionist group The Jewish Majority, said such language crosses a dangerous line. “Using the language of ‘monsters’ against political opponents is an act of dehumanization, and when the targets of that dehumanization are overwhelmingly associated with the Jewish community the consequences become especially dangerous,” the rabbis wrote.
Among those who signed are Rabbi David Ingber, founder of the Romemu congregation and senior director of Jewish life at 92NY; Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side; Rabbi Neil Zuckerman of Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side; and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of nearby Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.
The rabbis argued that Mamdani’s words carry weight beyond a single political dispute. “When Mayor Mamdani speaks, he is not speaking only for himself. He serves as a model for a growing political movement whose rhetoric and priorities are increasingly being emulated nationwide,” the letter said.
They also warned that rhetoric targeting Zionists broadly is deeply felt by many Jewish Americans. “When public figures treat ‘Zionists’ as a uniquely suspect category of people, they are speaking about the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community. Demonizing Zionists is not perceived by most Jews as criticism of a foreign government; it is experienced as an attack on a core component of Jewish identity and peoplehood.”
The letter pointed to a rise in antisemitic violence and threats, including last year’s killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, as well as alleged plots targeting an AIPAC office and politicians supported by AIPAC, as examples of the growing risks facing Jewish communities.
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“By casting pro-Israel civic participation as monstrous, conspiratorial and anti-democratic, Mr. Mamdani has put a target on the backs of American Jews and their allies,” the rabbis wrote, urging the mayor to apologize, “retract his remarks and affirm clearly that Jews and pro-Israel Americans are full participants in our democracy.”
The letter added: “Criticizing Israeli policy is not antisemitic. Treating millions of Zionist Jews as morally suspect, politically illegitimate or less deserving of equal participation in public life is.”
“The campaign is over, the votes are counted, and now the mayor needs to lower the temperature before someone gets hurt,” The Jewish Majority executive director Jonathan Schulman told The Post.
“Now is the time of monsters,” the mayor said during a 30-minute tirade at a campaign rally last week. “These monsters take many forms today. In those who fund … bad-faith attacks … those who would rather spend far more on political contributions than they would ever be made to pay in taxes.”
“In AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s wars.”
The mayor, in an attempt to defend his comments, later said that “I was quoting [Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio] Gramsci, who said: ‘The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.’
“I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world,” Mamdani added. “Not solely AIPAC, but frankly, super PACs at large who are spending millions of dollars in deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing airwave.”
The 34-year-old mayor supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the Jewish state, has repeatedly accused Israel’s military of “genocidal war” in Gaza and even vowed last year to arrest Netanyahu for alleged war crimes if he ever sets foot in the five boroughs.
