The “Weekend Update” segment of last Saturday’s Saturday Night Live featured an interview with a fictional New Yorker, Rhonda LaCenzo, about her anxieties over Zohran Mamdani becoming the city’s next mayor.  Many of her objections to Assemblymember Mamdani were rooted in unambiguous Islamophobia.  But while she referred to him as a “hipster jihadist,” nowhere did the sketch address substantive concerns about his stance on Israel and the way his positions and words feed Jewish anxiety.  Admittedly, that may have been too much to expect from an SNL comedy sketch.  But the segment left me worried about the conflation of hateful anti-Muslim bias and legitimate alarm over Mr. Mamdani’s anti-Zionist views.

As a congregational rabbi I have spent twenty-five years involved in initiatives bringing American Muslims and American Jews together.  We share so much in common:  not just our founding narratives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac,........

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