The recent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City did not come as a surprise to many who had followed his public positions. Mamdani has repeatedly expressed open hostility toward the State of Israel and toward the soldiers defending it.
What was more striking, however, was the support he received from several Jewish groups and activists.
This is not a new story in Jewish history.
There have always been Jews who distanced themselves from their people, and, at times, even opposed them. Some operated from the fringes, while others held positions of influence and cultural authority.
We have seen similar patterns in Israel in recent years: Calls to boycott the State of Israel, petitions against IDF soldiers in international forums, and demands to impose arms embargoes on Israel while it was fighting for the lives of its citizens.
Antisemitism is dividing Jews ideologically
We saw it again in the recent defamation of soldiers in the Sde Teiman detention camp affair. The phenomenon is not about policy differences.
It is about identity.
Traditional antisemitism attacked Jews from the outside. The new antisemitism often speaks Hebrew. It presents itself as moral, progressive, and enlightened, but it erodes the legitimacy of Jewish self-defense and dissolves the sense of shared destiny.
Berl Katznelson, one of the ideological founders of Labor Zionism, warned about this nearly a century ago. He described the tragedy of a Jewish child, shaped by generations of struggle and longing, who arrives in the Land of Israel only to be taught to hate himself and his heritage.
This struggle did not begin today, and it will not end tomorrow.
However, history teaches a clear lesson: those who detach themselves from their roots do not endure. Those who stand with their people, with memory and identity, are the ones who continue the story. The Jewish people survived not because of those who denied it, but because of those who carried it.
The writer, a rabbi and member of Knesset for the Otzma Yehudit Party, serves as the country’s heritage minister.