The Widening Wedge: Jewish Identity Targeted

I have been warning about this for years. Now it is no longer theoretical. New York is undergoing a dangerous political shift, and Jews are already bearing its consequences. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his allies advance an ideology that demands Jews sever their connection to Israel and present that demand as moral progress. For Jews, this is not an abstract debate. It is a direct assault on our identity.

Mamdani claims to oppose antisemitism, citing Jewish supporters and symbolic gestures as proof. But one cannot genuinely oppose antisemitism while declaring Zionism uniquely immoral. That contradiction is not benign, it is dangerous. When Jewish peoplehood in Israel is labeled unethical, Jews in the diaspora are placed under suspicion. This is not protection; it is prejudice.

The assertion that this ideology targets “Zionism, not Jews” collapses under scrutiny. Jewish identity is not merely a religion. It is a people, a history, and a nation bound to a homeland. When every group’s right to self-determination is affirmed except that of Jews, the message is unmistakable. Jewish peoplehood alone is deemed illegitimate.

Zionism did not invent the Jewish connection to Israel. That connection spans thousands of years. After genocide made statelessness a matter of survival, Jewish self-determination became non-negotiable. To demand that Jews renounce it in order to be considered moral is discrimination. Full stop.

I have watched this ideology take root inside New York City public schools over the past decade. As a former NYC public school teacher with twenty-six years of experience, I saw its effects intensify after October 7. AntiZionist rhetoric surged. Disinformation about Israel circulated freely. Hostility toward Jews escalated. Colleagues shared false narratives while cloaking themselves in moral righteousness.

In January 2024, several Jewish educators at my school asked the principal to provide professional development on antisemitism, specifically how it manifests today for both staff and students. What we received focused almost entirely on white supremacist and Nazi-era antisemitism. That history matters. But here it functioned as avoidance. It sidestepped the present reality of organized harassment, intimidation, and unrest on our streets and campuses under the banner of “antiZionism and Free-Palestine.”

At the same time, staff members who openly demonized Israel were reassured that they were not antisemitic because their hostility took a different form. It does not. It is the same hatred, repackaged in contemporary language.

This training did not challenge antisemitism. It normalized it. It allowed educators to feel virtuous while creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and colleagues. The system did not merely fall short. It failed Jews.

At MS 447 in Brooklyn, the consequences were explicit. A Holocaust survivor was reportedly barred from speaking because his connection to Israel was deemed “too political.” This was not a policy dispute. It was discrimination against a Jew. Silencing a survivor because Israel is inseparable from his life is antisemitism.

This is how antisemitism operates now. Jews are told we are welcome only if we erase or deny our connection to Israel. Our belonging is conditional. That is exclusion masquerading as inclusion.

This is not about silencing criticism of Israel. Jews criticize Israel constantly. It is about denying Jews the right to self-determination while affirming it for everyone else. It is about holding Jews to standards no other people are asked to meet. It is about redefining Jewish identity itself as immoral. AntiZionism has become the primary vehicle for antisemitism today.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks warned that antisemitism never disappears. It mutates. Each generation finds new ways to delegitimize Jews while claiming moral superiority. In this generation, that mutation is antiZionism. It is the mutated virus of antisemitism. Jews are targeted not only for belief or ancestry, but for our peoplehood and our homeland. When Jewish self-determination is declared illegitimate, Jews inevitably become targets.

This is the widening wedge before us. If left unchallenged, it will continue to split Jews from public life, from institutions, and from one another. We cannot allow it to grow. We must name antiZionism for what it is, not excuse it, not euphemize it, and not surrender to it in the hope of acceptance.

If pluralism is to mean anything, Jews must be included as Jews, not as people required to renounce core elements of our identity. No one should have to abandon who they are in order to belong or be protected. Any movement that conditions the acceptance of Jews on the rejection of Zionism constitutes discrimination.

As Educational Coordinator of the Gevura Fund and Co-Founder of the NYCPS Alliance, I call on the Jewish community to confront this reality without euphemism. Antisemitism is not disappearing. It is rebranding. Antizionism is its dominant form today, and naming it clearly is no longer optional.

Now is the moment to do the opposite of retreat. We must double down on Jewish pride, on Jewish peoplehood, and on our unbroken connection to Israel. The time to act is now.