Eleventh hour push to save New York Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 2025 • Lech Lecha • 9 Cheshvan 5786 • Vol. 24, No. 34
Dov dumps Curtis as worries mount over a split vote
By The Jewish Star New Yorkers who believe that a win by Democrat Zohran Mamdani in the Nov. 4 mayoral election would be a city-dooming event, have stepped up eleventh-hour efforts to prevent election of the anti-Israel socialist. Last-minute appeals to Jewish voters to support independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, the only viable alternative to Mamdani, include key supporters of red-beret-wearing Curtis Sliwa who have turned against the Guardian Angel. See 11th hour save on page 4
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It ain’t over ’till it’s over!
Curtis Sliwa.
Andrew Cuomo.
Hold your nose and vote Cuomo EDITORIAL
The odds seem insurmountable, but every election is a toss-up until the votes are counted. If you live in NYC: make sure that your vote counts — and urge your friends and relatives to vote as well. Andrew Cuomo is lousy candidate. He was a lousy governor. He’s likely to be less than a stellar mayor. But since he is the only alternative to Zohran Mamdani, he has my vote and he needs yours. No one should delude themselves that they’re being righteous by supporting Curtis Sliwa. A vote for Sliwa is, explicitly, a vote for Mamdani. Recriminations about how we got to this sorry juncture will come soon enough after the election. For now, it’s sufficient to acknowledge that Mamdani as mayor of the largest Jewish city outside of Israel would be very bad news. Accept this tip from Perkei Avot: We are not mandated to finish this job, but neither are we excused from trying. Get out and vote. Ed Weintrob, Editor
Zohran Mamdani.
Leader of Park Avenue Synagogue stands with Israel, calls Zohran loss an imperative
This is the text of the Shabbat sermon delivered by Elliot Cosgrove at the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan on Shabbat Bereshit. o be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York Jewish community. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide in Thursday’s debate — for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant — he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York. … Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination — these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive — no different than asking
Israel is not a detachable policy preference. To delegitimize Israel, as Mamdani has repeatedly done, is an attack on my personhood as a Jew, as an American, and as an American Jew.
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Elliot Cosgrove, spiritual leader of the Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, delivering his sermon on New York’s mayoral election. YouTube
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me to reject G-d, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith. … Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again — in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person — has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.”
Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But today, as I have before, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late. or me, the breaking point came not with Mamdani’s earlier statements — his accusations of Israeli genocide, his refusal to name Hamas a terrorist organization, or, See Park Ave pulpit on page 2
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