Who are the NYC Jews who voted for Mamdani? And what can be done to make them care more about their fellow Jews? ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Who are the NYC Jews who voted for Mamdani? And what can be done to make them care more about their fellow Jews?

A recent survey showed that 20% of New York Jews planned to vote for Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Zionist candidate. Some leftist Jewish groups even celebrated helping him win. But the real story isn't ideological betrayal: it's disconnection. These voters aren't turning against Judaism - they're drifting away from it. And that, not their politics, is the deeper threat.

A May survey showed that 20% of New York Jews planned to vote for Zohran Mamdani. Who are those 20%?

One of the problems with polling Jews is that being Jewish can describe belonging to a people, ethnicity or religion. So people who identify as Jews often have nothing to do with the Jewish religion. A recent Pew poll shows that 17% of Jews who were raised Jewish in America now say they are unaffiliated with any religion (and 7% converted out of Judaism.) Those 17% still identify as being ethnically Jewish but they have nothing to do with Judaism.

A survey of New York City Jews in 2023 showed this trend:

16% said being Jewish was not important to them
27% said having Jewish grandchildren was not important to them
15% had no connection to the Jewish community
22% did not observe Yom Kippur
48% never participate in any Jewish programs
32% of those who give charity never give to Jewish organizations

That poll shows a consistent pattern: the Jews who were most attached to Israel are the Jews for whom Judaism is the biggest part of their lives, and vice versa. The more religious Jews follow the news from Israel more closely, they care more about Israel when choosing which candidates to support, and they feel far more attached to Israel emotionally. Likewise, the Jews who were less affiliated with Judaism were the ones who cared the least about rising antisemitism in New York City.

The problem isn't that these Jews have a love for radical politics. It is that they don't care any more about Judaism. They still identify as ethnically Jewish but they don't identify as religiously Jewish. And the many articles that trumpet how many Jews have turned against Israel rarely point out that practically none of those Jews are practicing Jews.

We cannot convince them to change their politics. But we need to bring these Jews back into the Jewish community. Because as it is, they simply don't care about their fellow Jews, and that is the real problem.

These people who barely identify as Jews are the ones least likely to have Jewish friends. They have no community, and therefore they feel no Jewish identity and - more importantly - no obligation to the Jewish community. It can be surmised that many of them find other alternative communities to belong to - socialist or Leftist being how they primarily identify themselves.

How can we bring these Jews back? Especially those who have become agnostic or atheist?

Outside of "kiruv" organizations who try to make Jews more religious, what else can we do?

We need a new kind of Jewish outreach: not to religiosity, but to mutual obligation. Not to prayer, but to peoplehood. This means creating cultural spaces, online networks, and educational efforts that appeal to alienated Jews on ethical, emotional, and historical grounds. If religion feels distant, community can still feel vital.

One survey question is most telling. It asked why people felt either more or less attached to Israel over the past ten years.

The New York Jews who feel that they are less attached to Israel than ten years ago give their reasons:

And here are the reasons for Jews to have increased their attachment to Israel:

Those who felt less attached based their reasons overwhelmingly on what they are reading in the media about Israel. Practically none of them visited Israel or asked Israeli friends what the reality is - they read the New York Times or The New Yorker and base their opinions on second-hand, biased information.

How many of them would know that the hated Benjamin Netanyahu has poured more money into improving Israeli Arab communities than his predecessors? How many know that Arab Israelis are way overrepresented in medical fields compared to their numbers? If it is not reported in the newspapers, they have no way of knowing facts like that which disprove the "Israel is racist" meme that we see constantly in the news.

A plurality of those who felt more attached to Israel either visited Israel or chose on their own to research the truth. And in second place were those who learned more through family and friends. Both those methods bypass the media as the arbiter of what is actually happening in Israel.

The Jews who support Zohran Mamdani are those who are the most Jewishly and Zionistically illiterate. No doubt most of them consider themselves to be well-informed, but they don't have any Jewish or Israeli friends who can inform them of the truth.

The anti-Zionists rely on lies and on twisting the truth. The Zionists rely on first hand accounts and on friends who know the truth. If those who are more educated tend to be more Zionist, perhaps the Mamdani voters need to be challenged directly on what they think they know versus what the facts are.

But more importantly, the Jewish community must be more pro-active in making them feel that they are part of the Jewish people and share the same destiny. One's Jewish identity should be more important than one's political affiliation. The same advice applies to committed Jews and unmoored Jews: Jews should treat their fellow Jews as family, and give them the benefit of the doubt. We are all one people, whether or not we all realize it. Uncommitted Jews should learn that there are more paths to education and community than reading liberal media; committed Jews should not write off the uncommitted but redouble our efforts to bring them back into the family.