Farewell, New York?

There’s no need for exaggeration. The plain truth is bad enough.

If Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor of New York, the city faces four years of decline that will recall the chaos of the 1970s – worsening crime, rising disorder and the hollowing out of once-vibrant neighborhoods. For most New Yorkers, that will mean tougher daily lives, diminished municipal services and economic stagnation.

But for the city’s Jews, a Mamdani regime is likely to mean something far more menacing: a step-by-step loss of physical security recalling the incremental persecution Jews faced in 1930s Germany after Hitler took power.

To be clear: Mamdani is no Hitler. But his election will be a gift to Hitlerian forces – the rabidly antisemitic radicals, agitators and raging fanatics who will be encouraged and emboldened under his watch. They won’t look like Brownshirts, but they’ll act like them.

The consequences will be swift and unmistakable.

Radical left-wing groups, along with those openly aligned with Hamas and its genocidal goal of Israel’s destruction, will gain confidence. Unstable lone operators (too deranged to dignify with the term “wolves”) will be energized, convinced the left-wing zeitgeist has handed them a license to commit violent acts.

Can there be any doubt about this after the recent series of murders alleged to have been committed by self-styled “anti-fascist” shooters – the assassinations of pro-Israel conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, two Israeli diplomats in Washington, DC and the United Health Care CEO in Midtown Manhattan – and the killing of a Holocaust survivor in Boulder, Colorado by a “Free Palestine” protestor wielding a makeshift flamethrower?

We have already seen the outcome of Mamdani’s governing creed elsewhere. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Iryna Zarutska, a young Ukrainian refugee, was stabbed to death on public transit by a man with a long history of violent crime, weapons charges and repeated failures to appear in court. Instead of acknowledging the obvious – that a career criminal should have been locked up – the city’s mayor insisted that “we will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.” That wasn’t compassion. It was dereliction of duty. And it cost a young woman her life.

If that is what passes for leadership in progressive cities, imagine what will happen in New York when the victims are Jews on their way to synagogue, commuters on the subway, or shopkeepers closing up late at night. The pattern is clear – and deadly.

More to the point, can anyone still deny the poisonous fallout from promoting an ideology that excuses criminals and punishes victims – and teaches students of all ages to divide the world into two permanently warring camps of oppressed and oppressors, with America and Israel cast as leaders of the irredeemably villainous grouping?

Look at the revolting outpouring of support for the recent political murders on social media. What do you think will happen when a politician who refuses to condemn the “Globalize the Intifada” slogan is elected mayor of New York City?

Synagogues and Jewish communal institutions will be pressured to hide their support for Israel. Displaying the blue-and-white flag – the symbol of the Jewish State and the Jewish people – will be branded a provocation.

Jewish visibility will become a liability. Wearing a kippah, affixing a mezuzah or allowing a necklace with the Star of David to be seen will be strongly discouraged on “safety grounds.”

True to form, liberal experts will offer loads of advice.

In the early phase, Jews will simply be told to refrain from publicly backing Israel. Soon after, they will be urged – or coerced – into denouncing it. Progressive Jewish groups, a handful at first, will attempt to buy safety by going along.

At every step, Mamdani will issue the usual condemnations of antisemitism, paired with equal condemnations of “Islamophobia.” He will pledge to provide safety. But his police – those who haven’t taken early retirement or resigned to work in other jurisdictions – will be ordered to stand down or proceed with caution in the face of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, however violent and destructive.

Humiliation will be routine. Consider rock star Chris Martin of Coldplay inviting two fans onstage during his recent concert at Wembley Stadium in London. When the young women revealed they were from Israel, many audience members booed them. In response, Martin told them: “I’m very grateful that you’re here as humans. We are treating you as equal humans on Earth, regardless of where you come from.”

Under Mamdani, that will be the least threatening outcome New York’s Jews can expect each day.

Eventually, liberal media outlets will normalize even more degrading – and dangerous – incidents. Think it’s impossible that the Hamas-sympathizing New York Times might one day publish an essay urging Jews who “look Jewish” or have a “Jewish sounding name” to start wearing the kaffiyeh to “avoid altercations?” Don’t be so sure. It’s easy to imagine the author arguing that it isn’t a religious symbol like a cross – just a handy, stylish scarf, rebranded as an international emblem of resistance and progressive values, no different than, say, the peace sign.

And none of this should surprise us, given who stands behind and backs Mamdani. Recall his base: the far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose ranks have cheered on Hamas and smeared Israel as an “apartheid country” and a settler-colonial project. “Palestine” – that is to say, the dismantlement of Israel to create a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” – is their defining foreign policy issue. Opposition to boycotting Israel in order to bring about its defeat and dissolution is grounds for expulsion from the organization – and Mamdani is its standard bearer.

So much for the views of Mamdani and his “comrades,” as DSA members delight in calling each other.

According to Jewish tradition, the gift of prophecy ended with the destruction of the First Temple. But this future is entirely predictable: A Mamdani victory in November means the greatest Jewish city on earth outside of Israel will undergo an unprecedented unraveling – a city where Jews have resided since its 17^th century Dutch beginnings as New Amsterdam, contributing immeasurably to commerce, culture and philanthropy, and to the professions of medicine, law and education.

The inevitable result will be emigration – an exodus of Jewish New Yorkers comparable to or greater than that of the 1960s and ‘70s when rising crime rates, collapsing public schools and a weakening economy drove families away. Aliyah will be one option, and some will choose it. But most Jews with the means to leave will head for the suburbs or for Miami and other thriving Florida Freedom State cities where organized Jewish life – including public and proud support for the Jewish State – is welcomed.

The demographic shift will be historic, echoing not the 20^th century trend of suburbanization, but the forced flight of Jews from another land where they had prospered for centuries – Germany – in the years before the Second World War and the destruction of European Jewry.

The Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky warned Europe’s Jews of the storm gathering in the 1930s. Today, the warning must be sounded in the United States: Jews will not be safe in New York City If Mamdani comes to power. At best, they will be tolerated – if they keep their heads down and stay silent about Israel. In other words: as second-class citizens.