The Day After

And so, it has begun.

It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since Mamdani was elected as our new mayor, and already anti-Semites seem to feel they own the city.

This morning, images began circulating of a Jewish school in Brooklyn defaced with swastikas — two separate spots, both marked with hate. This is not just any school. It’s the place where I taught for five years, where two of my children studied, and where some of my nieces and nephews attended as well. It is personal. It is home.

When I saw the images, they didn’t reach me through the news — they reached me through life itself. They appeared in my WhatsApp feed, in my family group, in our Brooklyn community chats. The same familiar building I once walked through, now marked with swastikas.

I was horrified — as a Jew, as a mother, as someone who once called that place home. What a way to begin this new chapter. In case anyone was still uncertain or thought we might be overreacting, this moment made it painfully clear: our deepest fears were not imagined. They were founded. They were grounded in reality.

Before we rush to point fingers, let’s pause and recognize how proactive the Jewish community was in trying to prevent this very moment. In my twenty-three years living in America, I have never seen our community so mobilized around a mayoral election.

Schools called parents to make sure they were registered to vote. In some Brooklyn synagogues, families couldn’t even reserve High Holiday seats without showing proof of registration. I know relatives who hadn’t voted in forty years — yet this time, they did. Practically everyone I know voted for Cuomo. Social-media feeds overflowed with pleas to wake up. Everyone understood that a vote for Sliwa was a vote for Mamdani. Community members urged Republican voters not to split the vote. Even other mayoral candidates stepped aside to block a Mamdani victory.

Thank you, Mayor Adams, for putting the city’s well-being ahead of ego. Sadly, Sliwa did not do the same. And here we are — the day after — watching in disbelief as our city’s leadership now rests in the hands of someone whose values stand in stark opposition to ours.

Yet amid the dissapointment, I witnessed something remarkable. The school’s response was immediate and powerful. That very same day, they painted a large Israeli flag over the defaced wall — a message to every student: this is not the time to fear. This is the time to stand tall. We will not be pushed out of our own city. We will stay proud and firm — because this is our home too.

Seeing this Brooklyn school’s courageous response to this despicable act fills me with pride in my people and hope for a better tomorrow, even under these difficult circumstances.

I can only hope that our neighbors will stand with us, denouncing such acts and making it clear that New York has no place for hate — or for haters.