‘Mamdani the Hater’ Slanders Jews and Judaism

Rioters outside Park East synagogue in New York recently chanted genocidal screeds such as “There is only one solution: intifada revolution” and “we don’t want no two states, we want all of it.”

But rather than unequivocally condemn the rabid antisemitism inherent in the protests, New York City’s mayor elect Zohran Mamdani’s office chose to not only tokenize synagogues as “sacred spaces,” but to then also condemn the synagogue and its event guest, Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organization that strives to get Jews to move to Israel, as “promot[ing] activities in violation of international law.” (RELATED: The New York Times Sets a New Low on Israel)

As I have argued before, far before fungible, fair-weathered concepts of “international law” ever existed, Jews were the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, having sovereignty or pseudo-sovereignty there during:

• The Kingdom of Israel (1020 to 930 BCE);
• The northern Kingdom of Israel (930 BCE to 720 BCE);
• The southern Kingdom of Judah (930 BCE to 586 BCE);
• The Yehud under the Neo-Babylonian/Chaldean Empire (586 BCE-539 BCE);
• The Yehud Medinata under the Persian Achaemenid Empire (539 BCE to 332 BCE);
• The Hasmonean Dynasty under the Greek Seleucid Empire (164 BCE to 63 BCE)
• The Hasmonean Dynasty under the Roman Empire (63 BCE to 40 BCE);
• The Herodian Dynasty under the Roman Empire (37 BCE to 6 BCE);
• The First Jewish-Roman War (66 CE to 73 CE);
• The Palestinian Patriarchate under the Roman Empire (80 CE to 425 CE)
• Full independence from the Roman Empire as a result of the Bar Kokhba Rebellion (132 CE to 135 CE); and
• Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem under the Persian Sasanian Empire during the Jewish revolt against Heraclius (614-617 CE).

Apparent in the above timeline is not only the millennia-old Jewish ties to the Land of Israel, but that the Jews regained control of it several times after losing it to colonizers: in 586 BCE under the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah (brokered with King Cyrus, who allowed the Jews to return following Persia’s defeat of the Babylonians), under the Hasmonean Dynasty (featured in the story of Hanukkah when the Jews defeated the Greeks), several times during the Roman Empire, during the Jewish revolt against Heraclius from 614-617 CE, and finally during the re-establishment of Israel in 1948.

Mamdani slanders Jews and Judaism, as a yearning for the Jews to return to the Land of Israel is baked into Judaism itself. In the liturgy, Jews have prayed to return to the Land of Israel since Time Immemorial. Jews conclude the Passover Seder and the Yom Kippur service (“Neilah”) with the words “Next Year in Jerusalem.” The Grace After Meals pines for the restoration of Jerusalem. (RELATED: Israel, the Church, and the Unraveling of Conservative Unity)

Psalm 137:1 states that during the Babylonian Captivity, “By the Rivers of Babylonian we sat and wept when we remembered Jerusalem.” Psalm 137:5 states, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its skill.”

The Jews’ return to the land of Israel is predicted in the Hebrew Bible. According to Deuteronomy 30:1-5,

When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.

And Isaiah 11:11-12 states,

And it shall come to pass that on that day, the Lord shall continue to apply His hand a second time to acquire the rest of His people, that will remain from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Sumeria and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. And He shall raise a banner to the nations, and He shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah He shall gather from the four corners of the earth.

And Ezekiel 20:41-42 states, “With a pleasing savor I shall accept you when I take you out of the nations, and I shall gather you from the lands in which you were scattered, and I shall be hallowed through you before the eyes of the nations. And you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land that I lifted My hand to give to your forefathers.”

Jeremiah 29:14 states that “And I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will return your captivity and gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will return you to the place whence I exiled you.” Jeremiah 31:17 states, “There is hope for your future, says the Lord, and your children will return to their border.”

According to Wikipedia, Zion is mentioned 152 times in the Hebrew Bible and Jerusalem 669 times. Israel and Judah (as the names of land, in addition to the names of the biblical figures from whom they are named) are obviously in there, too.

And if not because of all that, Mamdani should know that the Quran states that the land belongs to the Jews and that they will return to it.

As the prophet Isaiah stated in Isaiah 62:1, “For the sake of Zion I will not be quiet, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still.” So let it be known that Mamdani defames Jews and Judaism by undermining the Jews’ inalienable right to live in (and return to) their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel.

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