(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, was not being subtle. In a recent interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at his office in Midtown East ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Akunis likened Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support for the Israel boycott movement to tactics used by Nazi Germany, called the mayor an “antisemite,” and said Mamdani bears direct responsibility for attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in New York.

Akunis was discussing Mamdani’s Day One decision to revoke an executive order issued by his predecessor, Eric Adams, against the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel when he invoked the Nazis. His comments, versions of which he has deployed on various occasions in recent weeks, mark an unusually stark escalation in the Israeli government’s criticism of New York’s mayor.

The consul general’s increasingly charged comments have entered unprecedented territory in a city where mayors have historically had a warm relationship with Israel and its representatives in New York. Mamdani, an avowed anti-Zionist, has himself broken that mold with harsh rhetoric about Israel.

As leaders of New York’s Jewish community navigate a tense relationship with Mamdani over Israel, critics from its progressive Zionist wing say the tenor of Akunis’s comments isn’t helping.

“I think in a moment where people are already feeling anxiety about the rise of antisemitism, to compare the anxiety people are feeling and equate it with the historical reality of the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath, doesn’t help people right-size their fear,” said Margo Hughes-Robinson, executive director of the liberal advocacy group New York Jewish Agenda.

Hughes-Robinson called Akunis’s Nazi Germany comparisons “unproductive” and “frankly offensive to the memory of the Holocaust and to the victims and survivors.”

When asked about criticism of the comparison, Akunis clarified that he is “not saying that we should compare the horrors of the Holocaust to today’s climate.” But people “must look at history to understand how antisemitism has risen,” he said.

“For example, Mamdani has called AIPAC ‘monsters,’ using the same kind of dehumanizing language that Hitler and the Nazis used to describe the Jewish people,” Akunis said. “Highlighting these rhetorical similarities is crucial to ensuring that today’s generation understands the danger of Mamdani’s language and why it must be stopped.”

A Mamdani spokesperson strongly rejected Akunis’s characterization. “To compare Mayor Mamdani to the Nazis, who murdered 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, is offensive, completely unhinged and detached from reality,” Sam Raskin told JTA. “The consul general should be ashamed of himself.”

Hughes-Robinson was one of the few rabbinical and Jewish organizational leaders who would respond on the record to the JTA’s request for thoughts on the strategy Akunis has adopted in countering Mamdani’s anti-Israel positions. More than a dozen declined to comment.

While Mark Treyger, the current CEO of New York’s Jewish Community Relations Council, did not respond to a request for comment on the topic, his predecessor expressed sympathy for the challenge facing Akunis.

“I don’t envy the position that he’s in,” said Michael Miller, who was CEO of the JCRC for 35 years, until 2021. Miller said that Akunis is in a tough spot “having to wrestle with the reality of a mayor who doesn’t believe the country that Ofir [Akunis] represents has legitimacy.”

Akunis is representing Israel at a time when the country is led by its most right-wing government ever, when its international standing is tanking and when pro-Palestinian progressives like Mamdani are ascendant. Akunis had a close relationship with Mamdani’s predecessor, Adams,........

© The Times of Israel