The Mamdani mayoralty is a dark cloud looming over Jewish New Yorkers. Last week, for example, anti-Zionist protesters managed to cancel Israeli comedian Guy Hochman’s show at Manhattan’s Broadway Comedy Club. January’s silver lining has been Mark Levine, New York City’s new Comptroller, who reportedly will be reinvesting in Israel bonds. Darkness and light are aswirl in New York, and they’re worth disentangling.
The comedy show cancellation was coordinated. Five anti-Zionist groups jointly advertised picketing outside the club, calling Hochman a “wanted war criminal” and “genocidaire.” The Instagram post claimed, “Hochman is guilty of inciting genocide through his role in the IDF broadcast unit. Hochman raised IDF soldiers’ morale and referred to himself as the ‘Chief Smiles Officer,’ documenting his war crimes in Gaza wearing an IDF uniform.” In short, these anti-Zionists consider comedy and military service crimes.
Jewish Insider described the resulting protest: “Outside the comedy venue, masked demonstrators banged on drums, chanted and held signs that read ‘clean up the trash,’ ‘death to the IDF’ and ‘no war criminals in our city.’ A heavy NYPD presence was called to monitor the protest.”
An NYPD spokesperson told The Times of Israel that police “separated two groups of protesters,” enabling patrons’ entry. However, Gerard Filitti, Senior Counsel at The Lawfare Project, told me, “Merely sending sufficient officers to keep people separated is not enough … to prevent “bias-motivated intimidation” at Jewish events “and has not been enough for years.”
Hochman told Jewish Insider that “the owner of the place was afraid and cancelled the show. . . . So, I did an alternative show for my audience outside freezing to death.”
It’s good Hochman performed; comedy remains legal. However, it’s ominous that he had to perform outside in January because of his IDF service.
Filitti commented, “By allowing anti-Jewish activists to shut down a comedian’s show through manufactured ‘safety concerns’ -– a heckler’s veto — the government [Mamdani’s administration and NYPD] is effectively taking sides and selectively enforcing the First Amendment. It is sending the message that extremists have the power to decide who gets to speak, and that discrimination can override the legal protections that minorities have. . . . That’s not how the Constitution works.”
Governmental passivity has ripple effects. Among them, Israelis and Jews will likely be targeted again.
“The overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionists,” Jonathan Schulman, Executive Director of The Jewish Majority, told me. “So, if anti-Zionists are empowered to use that belief as a justification to harm people’s livelihoods or bar them from public life, then we are watching the modern blueprint for Jewish exclusion being written in real time.”
Marginalising Jews en masse would inaugurate a chilling new chapter for American Jewry, with America becoming one, big anti-Zionist campus. But as Filitti observed, “Full and equal participation in American society means that you don’t have to pass an ideological loyalty test in order to speak, or even exist, in public. Shutting Jews out of public life isn’t political expression. It’s discrimination and a civil rights failure.”
Thankfully, not everything Zionist-related is unfolding similarly. New Comptroller Mark Levine is working to keep his Democratic primary promise and reinvest New York City’s pension dollars in Israel bonds. The Forward quoted Levine explaining his support: “‘Israel has never missed a bond payment, and a good, balanced portfolio should have global diversity.’”
The Forward reported Israel bonds offer “a roughly 5% return. New York held the bonds between 1974 and 2023, when then-comptroller Brad Lander, who is also Jewish, ended the city’s investment of” nearly $40 million. That is, JNS reported, within the context of nearly $295 billion “in pension funds on behalf of some 750,000 teachers, firefighters and police officers.”
Mayor Mamdani, who supports divesting from Israel, reiterated his opposition to Levine’s plan last week. However, Mamdani can’t easily counter Levine’s reversal, just as Mayor Eric Adams couldn’t overturn the leftist Lander’s decision not to reinvest, when the City’s existing Israel bonds matured in 2023.
If Levine can thwart New York City’s Israel boycotters by investing in America’s close ally and earning strong returns for pensioners, that’d be a win for Western civilisation and its supporters. Meanwhile, anti-Zionists’ ongoing campaign to marginalise American Jews is a threat with widespread, daily implications. This campaign requires more attention, because its adherents are committed and won’t simply vanish. The Jewish community and its friends need a forceful, coordinated response, reminding all Americans that laws define who can participate in American society, not random anti-Zionists.
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