Progressive Jewish Group Hits Back After Trump Calls Jews Voting for Mamdani ‘Stupid’
"Trump and his allies claim to defend Jews, yet ignore antisemitism in their own ranks," Jamie Beran of Bend the Arc told Common Dreams.
President Donald Trump used one of his final messages before New York's mayoral election on Tuesday to insult the many Jewish supporters expected to turn out in favor of the Democratic nominee, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self-professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social just hours after polls opened.
It was one final attempt to smear the assemblyman, who pre-election polls showed leading comfortably, as antisemitic over his criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights, which has revealed stark divisions in opinion among American Jews, with New York being no exception.
Courting Trump's support—which he earned Monday along with that of Elon Musk and senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller—former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has leaned into the most vulgar of Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani over the home stretch of the campaign, referring to him as a "terrorist sympathizer" and suggesting he'd support a second 9/11.
But in the face of these attacks, Mamdani's support among Jewish voters has remained strong. In July, with the field still fractured, he outright led among Jewish voters. And though Cuomo has bolstered his Jewish support since the dropout of incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, polls have varied widely, with some showing Mamdani and Cuomo virtually tied among Jewish voters and others showing Cuomo with a commanding lead.
Mamdani has nevertheless managed to make tremendous inroads with Jewish leaders, most recently the influential Orthodox rabbi, Moshe Indig, who endorsed Mamdani at a meeting in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sunday.
He had previously earned the support of the Brooklyn native Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and local leaders, including a former mayoral contender for this cycle, Comptroller Brad Lander, and Ruth Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president and Democratic nominee for mayor in 1997.
He has also received the endorsement of several Jewish organizations, including the pro-Palestinian Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, the New York-based Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), and Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish organization that deals primarily with domestic matters.
Following his latest insult to Mamdani, Jamie Beran, the CEO of Bend the Arc, said that “Trump is showing once again that he doesn’t care about Jewish people. He only uses us when it’s convenient for him, with no regard to the damage he does to the Jewish community or the danger he puts us in. Both Trump and disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo use smokescreen antisemitism to manipulate Jewish fears for their personal gain."
Trump's attack on Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, is hardly his first. In recent days, the president has slurred the assemblyman as a "communist lunatic" and indicated he'd cut off federal funding from New York if he wins the election. With support from Republican members of Congress, he's also threatened to strip Mamdani's US citizenship and have him deported from the country if he attempts to interfere with deployments of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to carry out mass deportations.
But although Trump has often invoked "antisemitism" to justify his efforts to punish pro-Palestine speech, he's long degraded Jewish people who vote in ways he disagrees with. During the 2024 election, he ranted that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion"—an insult to the 79% of Jewish voters who voted for his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris. Before that, he'd repeatedly referred to Jewish Americans who do not vote for him as "disloyal" to Israel, a country in which they do not live.
In recent weeks, the Republican Party has been dogged by several scandals related to antisemitism. Last month, a leaked group chat of Young Republican operatives—including several who worked for the New York GOP—was revealed by Politico to be full of praise for Adolf Hitler and jokes about gas chambers. Shortly after, Trump's pick for the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, had his nomination tanked after it was revealed that he'd described himself as having a "Nazi streak."
And over the past week, the Heritage Foundation—the influential right-wing think tank behind Trump's Project 2025 agenda—has dealt with discord in its own ranks after its leader, Kevin Roberts, stridently defended right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson's friendly interview with self-described fascist and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
"The antisemitism smears against Zohran Mamdani increasingly fall flat because people are learning to see through smokescreen antisemitism," Beran told Common Dreams. "That is, how bad actors who have never joined our work, or any work, to actually end antisemitism, instead only use antisemitism to promote themselves and their agendas—which harm Jews, our loved ones, and our neighbors. Trump and his allies claim to defend Jews, yet ignore antisemitism in their own ranks."
"Jewish leaders who actually want to end antisemitism know that leaders like Zohran understand that a strong democracy keeps Jews—and all of us—safest," she continued. "Jews exist across many identities, from immigrants, to trans people, from Black and brown people, to those with disabilities who are struggling to afford life in the city. And actually trying to end antisemitism and all bigotry requires all of us.”
