On the surface, I have a lot in common with Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. We have 138 mutual friends on Facebook. We are roughly the same age. And the synagogue he has led for the past quarter century, Park Avenue Synagogue, is where I attended Hebrew school as a teenager in the early 90s, learning with some of the city’s best teachers.

And yet when I saw Cosgrove’s jeremiad against Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York, I couldn’t find much overlap at all. So as his sermon makes the rounds, I decided to share my perspective as a New Yorker with decades of experience engaging Jewish voters.

While Cosgrove was finishing high school in Los Angeles, David Dinkins was elected mayor of New York. He had a long record of alignment with Jewish institutions regarding Israel. Dinkins opposed anti-Zionist resolutions at the United Nations. He traveled to Israel three times, including during the Gulf War while mayor.

I remember in 1990, South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela had been released from prison and was planning to visit New York City. Dinkins, who like most New Yorkers considered Mandela a hero, was thrilled to welcome him. The Jewish communal leadership, on the other hand, had mixed feelings. See, Mandela saw parallels between the Palestinian struggle and his own, and was an ally of Yasser Arafat. Therefore, Mandela was tainted.

Dinkins served just a single term as mayor. Despite putting the city on........

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