Mayor Zohran Mamdani, I know you’re busy with your socialist agenda for New York. So much to destroy, so little time.
You’re already moving forward on so many fronts. You’re demoralizing the police. Demonizing the successful. Destroying the livelihoods of families that run bodegas. Eviscerating the tax base. Turning landlords into slumlords because they can’t afford to make essential repairs. Allowing violent criminals here illegally to remain and wreak havoc on our streets. Inserting people who hate America into congressional and Senate races. And serving as the greatest realtor in the history of Florida.
I get it. You’ve got your hands full.
But here’s one more thing you need to do.
You are welcome to hate the Jews, but you nevertheless have a moral obligation to protect them.
You may not believe it, but there isn’t a single Jew living in the city of New York who has the slightest influence on Israeli government policy. Don’t like what’s going on in Gaza? Don’t blame Jewish New Yorkers. We share the same religion with the people in Israel, but it’s their government. So, when you launch your anti-Israel, antisemitic diatribes, there are real-world consequences right here.
People have gotten stabbed because of your ugly rhetoric. People can get killed.
You are admittedly a master of social media. The problem with social media is that it turns regular people into radicals and radicals into killers.
It used to be that a deranged guy could stand outside a supermarket and maybe 100 people would hear his ranting. Today, that same guy has half a million followers on X. Even though he’s a total loser living in his parents’ basement and subsists on government cheese, people think he’s a genius and worth paying attention to.
Mr. Mayor, the things you do and say inflame people. And inflamed people may be ignorant, but they are dangerous. You have to own your words and the effect your words have.
Decades ago, on Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, comedian Norm Macdonald told a very funny joke: “A movie star got in trouble this week for saying that the Jews controlled Hollywood. As a reaction, a Jewish group that found his statement offensive made it snow in Los Angeles in April.“
Mr. Mayor, we don’t control Hollywood, the weather, the banks, or even the decisions made by the leaders of the state of Israel. We know you go to ChatGPT, because you want to spell the name Benjamin Netanyahu properly on his arrest warrant. Maybe while you’re there, you can research what I’m saying. You’ll discover that I’m telling the truth. Jews don’t control what happens in the Middle East. In fact, the Jews of New York City are like everybody else. We just want to make a living, raise our children, live our lives, and not be subject to hatred and violence. Is that too much to ask?
Keeping all residents safe, even the ones you despise, is your job one. It comes before destabilizing the Democratic Party, bankrupting landlords, destroying bodegas, or driving Wall Street to Texas and Florida.
This includes protecting Jews on the subway, walking to synagogue, or just living their lives.
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Feel free to destroy the city economically, because that seems to be your biggest goal in life. But if you aren’t willing to recognize the effects of your hateful, bigoted pronouncements on the many mentally unhinged people in your city, and then bad things happen, I’ll make you a promise.
You’d better keep your snow boots handy next spring. Because outside Gracie Mansion, we are going to make it snow like hell.
Michael Levin is a two-time New York Times bestselling author.