The 34-year-old led campaigns to delegitimize and demonize Israel on his college campus, drove legislation to defund New York nonprofits that assist Israelis, accused the Jewish state of unfounded grave abuses, rejected the internationally recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism and even opposed ceremonial resolutions honoring the State of Israel or commemorating the Holocaust. He also refuses to categorically condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which glorifies and incites violence. His pattern is not dissent; it is obsession.

What happens in New York does not stay in New York. If a major U.S. city normalizes BDS politics and rewards rhetoric that isolates Jews, it will embolden extremists everywhere. The question before us is not only who leads New York, but what message American Jewry sends about the limits of decency in public life.

Bigotry spreads when leaders normalize hate. Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate in a democracy, but rhetoric that denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination or glorifies violence crosses a moral line. Words that excuse terrorism or aim to delegitimize Israel poison public discourse and endanger Jewish life. That moral inversion, condemning Israel while excusing Hamas’s atrocities, reveals an obsession not with justice but with Jews.

Ancient lies now circulate in modern form. These canards and blood libels against the Jewish people and state distort reality, erode trust and fuel hostility that drives hundreds of antisemitic incidents each year, including violent assaults on New York’s streets. The safety of Jewish New Yorkers stands inseparable from the safety of all who call this city home. Protecting one community strengthens the whole city because security and dignity belong to everyone, regardless of faith or ethnicity.

In this context, any candidate who fails to condemn terrorists who burned families alive, abducted civilians, and committed rape and other war crimes, as Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists did in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, forfeits the moral right to seek public office. True compassion demands moral clarity, not its abandonment.

This pattern is not new. It is the world’s oldest prejudice, and each generation of Jew-haters wraps it in new slogans and ideologies. Today’s attacks on Zionism and Jewish identity repeat the same falsehood that Jews alone must justify our existence. Attacks on Israel’s legitimacy mirror older attacks on Jewish identity because the right of Jews to self-determination in our ancestral homeland lies at the heart of Jewish peoplehood. When leaders refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and confront that lie, hatred grows, and history is rewritten with tragic consequences.

The lesson endures: Given the real and active threats facing Jewish New Yorkers, candidates and officials must strengthen law enforcement and direct resources to protect synagogues, schools and community institutions. They must treat the defense of Jewish life as a moral duty and ensure that city agencies prosecute anti-Jewish crime so every Jewish New Yorker feels secure.

Beyond moral clarity, leadership demands competence. New York cannot afford on-the-job training.

Even The New York Times concluded that Mamdani is unfit to govern a city of this scale and complexity. The next mayor must protect every New Yorker equally. That role demands clarity, conviction and the humility to listen, as well as the courage to act. True leadership must unite, not divide. Those who inflame tension or target one community fracture the civic fabric that holds this city together and forfeit the public’s trust.

Those who aspire to lead must take responsibility for their words, reject association with anyone who traffics in hatred or glorifies terror, and confront those who spread lies about Jews. They must make their values unmistakable through action, not performance. Silence in the face of incitement signals complicity. Voters deserve leaders who rise to the moral demands of the moment.

Even in moments of isolation, we affirm life, build bridges and strengthen the shared future of New York City. Those who seek to lead must choose unity over division and responsibility over rhetoric. Political debate must never become a license for prejudice or hate.

William Daroff is CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Betsy Berns Korn is chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.