The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they happen.

New York Jews favor former governor Andrew Cuomo over the far-left Israel critic Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race, a new poll says, days before the election.

The Quinnipiac University poll finds that, if elections were held today, 60 percent of Jews would vote for Cuomo, and 16% for Mamdani. The survey has a relatively small sample size of 170 Jews, with a ±9.2% margin of error for Jewish respondents.

Twelve percent of Jews would vote for Republican Curtis Sliwa, while the remainder are undecided, favor another candidate, or refused to answer.

The poll says that 75% of Jews have an unfavorable view of Mamdani and 15% are in favor, while 39% have a favorable view of Cuomo, and 50% have an unfavorable view.

The top issue for Jewish voters, by a wide margin, is crime, followed by affordable housing and schools. The survey does not ask about Israel or Jewish issues.

For all voters, Mamdani leads Cuomo 43% to 33%, and Sliwa trails both at 14%.

Early voting is underway and the general election is on November 4.

Likud Culture Minister Miki Zohar defends tapping Yair Netanyahu, the controversial older son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for a cushy gig in the World Zionist Organization.

In a post on X, Zohar claims that, for many years, figures on the left have “worked to appoint relatives and associates to positions in national institutions.”

Zohar says that “suddenly, when it comes to Likud and Netanyahu, it turns into a storm.”

The minister denounces the “disgusting display of malicious hypocrisy” against the younger Netanyahu, who, he asserts “merely wanted to promote Zionist advocacy in the Diaspora for the sake of the Jewish people.”

According to Hebrew media reports, the compromise deal that was reached between Likud and Yesh Atid earlier today over roles in WZO and KKL has now been put on hold, over Yesh Atid’s outrage at the job offer to Netanyahu.

Released hostage Alon Ohel appears at the end of satirical comedy show ,”Eretz Nehederet,” playing the piano as the cast sings David Broza’s “Under the Sky.”

Host Eyal Kitzis notes that having Ohel with them closes the circle from eight months earlier, when singer and performer Hanan Ben Ari joined the “Eretz Nehederet” cast to sing a song for Ohel, a budding pianist who was held hostage for two years and finally freed earlier this month.

Ohel, wearing a patch on his right eye due to untreated injuries he sustained on October 7, 2023, grins from time to time, as he accompanies the cast, and particularly when his parents and sister join him and the cast onstage.

Members of the “Eretz Nehederet” cast hug the Ohels and embrace the freed hostage as he plays.

Yair Netanyahu, the elder son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has reportedly been appointed to a senior role in the World Zionist Organization.

According to Hebrew media outlets, Likud Culture Minister Miki Zohar has put forth the younger Netanyahu for a position in the WZO, as part of a larger compromise agreement on dividing up roles in key Zionist organizations between Likud and Yesh Atid.

According to the Ynet news site, the job comes with an office, a........

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