The ascendance of Zohran Mamdani stunned many Jewish New Yorkers, and now that he has been elected, many Jews in New York and across the country feel fear and foreboding. The city that long stood as the beating heart of American Jewish life, creative, intellectual, and spiritual, has elected a man who denies the Jewish right to national self-determination, traffics in rhetoric that isolates our community, and aligns with movements hostile to Jewish safety and dignity.

This moment strikes a community already reeling from the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the wave of antisemitism that followed. Mamdani was the encampment candidate, lifted by the same forces that turned American campuses into arenas of cruelty and open hatred of Jews. For many, the outcome feels like the city we built, enriched and defended turning its back on us.

But panic provides no preparation, and despair offers no strategy. The Jewish people endured darker nights than this one. We never surrendered. We stood........

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