On Friday night, early votes had already been cast in their many thousands for Mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who leads the prominent Central Synagogue in Manhattan, took the occasion to slander the democratic socialist candidate, purportedly in the name of Jewish New Yorkers.

“Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism,” Buchdahl said.

Buchdahl didn’t cite any actual antisemitism. Her problem with Mamdani was his criticism of Israel.

Mamdani’s alleged antisemitism? Pointing out, in 2023, the established fact that the Israeli military has trained hundreds of members of the New York Police Department, and that the NYPD and Israeli forces have intelligence sharing agreements. The rabbi also decried Mamdani’s “false claims of genocide” in Gaza — claims shared by leading genocide scholars, and every major international

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