Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral primary puts into sharp relief the political dilemma that faces the broad center of American Jewry.

We want the State of Israel to endure and prosper as a democracy, and we want a United States where tolerance, justice and democracy flourish. As a minority, we need partners to make progress. But partners on some issues are our foes on others.

This is a difficult dilemma, but not as difficult as it seems. There is an opening for a renewed Jewish progressivism that defends Jewish interests as it pursues social justice.

A prevalent misreading of the political scene makes that opening hard to see. As the far left, big-money campaign donors and lazy political reporters all like to describe it, Democrats are split between a monolithic “moderate” establishment and progressive outsiders. Either you give up on social justice, or you fall in line behind anti-Israel activists.

The outcome of last Tuesday’s mayor primary in New York City might seem to support that, but the reality is messier and more promising. While it’s crystal clear that Mamdani is no friend of Israel, that’s not what won him the election. He campaigned and won on economic populism.

Democrats are split over economic populism, in ways that the establishment-outsider dichotomy only obscures. Moderate-labeled legislators like Chris Murphy and Chris DeLuzio have joined with the leader of the Progressive Caucus, Greg Casar, in calling on the party to downplay issues of culture and identity and champion the interests of the many against the super-rich.

As Murphy, DeLuzio and

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