NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Condemns Antisemitic Graffiti at Brooklyn Yeshiva

New York City’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, denounced an act of antisemitic vandalism discovered at a Brooklyn yeshiva on Wednesday morning, just hours after his decisive victory in the city’s mayoral race.

The graffiti, which included a swastika spray-painted on the building, was shared online by a user who wrote, “My community’s yeshiva (Jewish day school) in Brooklyn, where I taught years ago.” Mamdani responded to the post, calling the act “disgusting and heartbreaking.”

“This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city,” Mamdani wrote on X. “As mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”

Mamdani’s statement comes after a contentious campaign marked by intense debate over antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. His progressive platform and outspoken criticism of Israel drew both strong support and sharp rebuke from different parts of the city’s electorate.

Just days before the election, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue publicly criticized Mamdani during a sermon, accusing him of promoting rhetoric that “mainstreams some of the most abhorrent antisemitism.” She cited past remarks in which Mamdani compared police brutality in New York to Israeli military practices, comments she said “echoed age-old antisemitic tropes.”

Buchdahl also referenced Mamdani’s previous statements labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” his refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization, and his opposition to Israel as a Jewish state, saying such views contribute to “an atmosphere of denigration and ostracization of Jewish people everywhere.”

Throughout his campaign, Mamdani sought to address concerns about antisemitism while also pledging to confront Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslim New Yorkers. He has maintained that his criticism of Israeli government policy is political, not religious, and vowed to be a mayor for “all New Yorkers.”