Posted on 11/07/2025 10:30:47 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Since at least 1967, the organized American Jewish community, and virtually all US politicians, have treated Israel’s system of Jewish legal supremacy as nonnegotiable. Anti-Zionism has been beyond the pale. Mamdani’s victory suggests that we are witnessing a historic change.
By bringing together anti-Zionists and liberal Zionists, Mamdani has forged a coalition that allows Americans who disagree in their ultimate vision for Palestine and Israel to work together to end unconditional US support for Israel. In the coming years, that coalition could change the Democratic Party, and American politics, as a whole.
On its website, New York Jewish Agenda declares that “we are proud to call ourselves liberal Zionists.” But in a Guardian report last month, its executive director Phylisa Wisdom acknowledged that its members’ views are in flux: “There are a lot of people who couldn’t ever imagine voting for an anti-Zionist mayor and who also could never have imagined their own feelings about Israel and the Israeli government that they are having right now,” she said.
Many liberal Zionists, she suggested, think Mamdani is correct “that Benjamin Netanyahu should be behind bars.”
If some liberal Zionists have warmed to Mamdani because they’re more alienated from Israel, they’ve also warmed to him because they are more alienated from many of Israel’s defenders in the US.
In 2022, the Canadian political scientist Mira Sucharov asked American Jews whether they supported Zionism according to different definitions of the term. When she defined Zionism as “a belief in a Jewish and democratic state,” 72% agreed. But when she defined it as “the belief in privileging Jewish rights over non-Jewish rights in Israel,” the figure dropped to only 13%.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishcurrents.org ...
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Mamdani is not even qualified to be Dog catcher in NYC
I believe that Mayor of New York City is his very first job.
I hope someone takes him aside and tells him “We usually start at 9 and work through to 5. Just an hour for lunch, okay?” As someone who has never worked before, he may need that kind of hand-holding.
Or if you really want to compare apples with apples
But this just exposes the irrationality of the polled group. 59% of those polled favor a "Jewish and democratic state" which contains a non-Jewish population and which does not privilege Jewish rights. Such a thing does not exist now, and in fact cannot by definition exist if non-Jews are allowed to have children and are allowed to vote.
I thought all Jews were smart.
Germany 1933......”Oh, don’t worry about that Hitler guy, he only is talking about the *bad* Jews, he’s not talking about us.”
Must watch: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1066837218766137
New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive Jewish advocacy organization, has named a successor to its founding executive director.
Phylisa Wisdom, 37, joins the organization after a year as director of development and government affairs at Yaffed, whose mission is to improve the quality of secular education in New York’s Hasidic and haredi yeshivas. She is taking over the position from Matt Nosanchuk, NYJA’s founding president and executive director, who will continue to be involved with the organization as a member of its board of directors, as per a press release.
Joining NYJA is a “long-term dream come true,” Wisdom told the New York Jewish Week.
Wisdom, whose first day on the job was Monday, has experience in advocacy through political campaigns, nonprofits and government agencies. She has held roles at the Brooklyn Democratic County Committee, Literacy Trust and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
Founded in 2020 by Rabbis Rachel Timoner and Sharon Kleinbaum, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, Amy Rutkin, chief of staff to Jerry Nadler along with Nosanchuk, the New York Jewish Agenda works to support and amplify the voices of Jewish community leaders “whose shared values motivate them to promote social justice, combat antisemitism, and support a democratic vision of Israel,” according to its website. “We engage on critical issues across New York City and State through advocacy, education, and collaboration.”
The organization has been involved with a wide range of issues and topics such as health, criminal justice reform, antisemitism, and advocating for Israel’s democracy. Most recently, NYJA has advocated for better representation of New York City’s Jewish community in Mayor Eric Adams’ Jewish Advisory Council.
“Phylisa Wisdom is exactly the right leader for this moment,” Timoner, NYJA co-founder and board member, said in the press release. “She’ll bring an inspiring and incisive voice to ensure that the majority of New York’s Jews are represented and heard.”
Wisdom said she hopes as executive director to build upon NYJA’s work of engaging the city and state on these issues. She’s also hoping to widen the group’s purview.
“I’m excited to build out our portfolio in other areas of interest,” Wisdom said. “So that’s really in public health, in immigration, in education, both public and private, and in supporting the climate. So really looking at state and city budget priorities, engaging our Leaders Network in those practices related to the budget, and making sure that our Leaders Network and founders, and the entire Jewish community’s voices are heard on these issues as well.”
A native of San Diego, Wisdom “came of age doing Jewish activism,” she said, describing her connection to Judaism as “largely through activism and engagement, community engagement and really a deep commitment to tikkun olam that was nurtured from a very young age, both by my parents and family and also my extended community.”
Wisdom’s years of activism began with registering voters as a teen; while in high school, she also joined the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center in lobbying for reproductive justice. . .
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