Zohran Mamdani; Who Is This 33 Year Old Kid?

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Zohran Mamdani, wants to be the mayor of New York City.  

This anticipated upset winner of the June 24 primary, will face embattled Mayor Eric Adams, a fellow Democrat who dropped out of the race for his party's nomination to run as an independent. And even Mamdani's main rival in the primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is still mulling an independent bid.

So the intra-party battle continues between progressive backers of Mamdani, a 33-year-old state Assembly member and democratic socialist, and centrists such as Adams and Cuomo.

         Mayor Eric Adams, b:September 1, 1960, at age 65  Mayor Eric Adams has served the people of New York City as an NYPD officer, State Senator, Brooklyn Borough President, and now as the 110th Mayor of the City of New York. He gave voice to a diverse coalition of working families in all five boroughs and is leading the fight to bring back New York City’s economy, reduce inequality, improve public safety, and build a stronger, healthier city that delivers for all New Yorkers.

He has signed an order as a sign of supporting Israel which requires city agencies to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s description of antisemitism, at a synagogue in Manhattan on Sunday. Adams described antisemitism as “a vile disease that’s been spreading across our nation and our city”.

Adams, a deeply unpopular first-term mayor whose time in office has been blighted by accusations of accepting bribes, has positioned himself as a staunch defender of Israel as he seeks to win election. He referenced the recent murder of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington and the attack on a crowd of people in Colorado who were raising awareness for Israeli hostages in Gaza before signing the order.

“Since Hamas’ terror attacks on October 7 2023, we have seen this hateful rhetoric become normalized on our campuses, in our communities, and online as antisemitic propaganda far too often masquerades as ‘activism’. When Jewish New Yorkers make up 11% of the population but more than half of all hate crimes, we know this moment demands bold, decisive action to crack down on anti-Jewish hatred,” Adams said.

Now, what's a democatic socialist and how does it differ from communism?  Socialism and communism, while often mentioned together, have key distinctions. Socialism generally involves social ownership of the means of production, aiming for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources, often through state or collective control. Communism, as a theoretical endpoint of socialism, envisions a stateless, classless society with common ownership of all property and resources, eliminating the need for a government. 

• Socialism can exist under various political systems, from democratic to authoritarian, and is  not inherently tied to a specific form of government. Socialism aims to reduce inequality and promote social welfare through redistribution of wealth and resources, ensuring basic necessities like healthcare, education, and housing are accessible to all. Many modern social democracies, like those in Scandinavia, implement socialist policies like strong social safety nets, public healthcare, and progressive taxation while maintaining a capitalist economy. 

Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda. His father is Mahmood Mamdani, an Indian-Ugandan and postcolonial studies professor at Columbia University, of Gujarati Shia Muslim descent,  His mother is Mira Nair, an Indian-American filmmaker of Punjabi Hindu descent. His father gave him the middle name Kwame, in honor of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. 

In 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in the 2025 mayoral election. His campaign platform includes support for free city buses, public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, and building affordable social housing units.

 He is a critic of the Israeli government. During the Democratic primary campaign,  He must be friends with Bernie Sanders and the Squad to get their endorsements.  These would not be my friends at all.   Mamdani's criticisms are primarily directed at Israeli government policies and actions, such as the occupation and military response in Gaza, which he has called a "genocide". He has not expressed issues with American Jews who support Israel.  He defended the phrase "globalize the intifada" not as a call to violence, but as reflecting a "desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights".   He has expressed the need to distinguish between the concept of a "Jewish homeland" and the "Jewish state".

Like most, this last statement really shows me he has no understanding of our vast history.  

 The Jewish population of New York City is approximately 960,000 or 12% of NY City are Jewish. This makes New York City home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Within the larger New York metropolitan area, which includes the city and surrounding counties, the Jewish population is over 1.9 million, according to Wikipedia. 

Mamdani received several endorsements from prominent progressive politicians, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez one of the leaders of THE Squad.  If the squad's leader is for him, all of them no doubt are for him.  

Rashida Tlaib, Palestinian -  she is the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and one of the first two Muslim women elected (along with Ilhan Omar) to Congress .

She is sharply critical of Israel, viewing it as an apartheid state. Tlaib has called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel; she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. On November 7, 2023, Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives in response to her public statements following the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.    

Some criticized Tlaib's statements, feeling that she did not adequately condemn the Hamas attack. Other Democrats, such as Ilhan Omar, explicitly condemned Hamas, while Tlaib focused on the broader context of the conflict and underlying issues.   

 Following her comments, Tlaib faced a censure resolution in the House of Representatives. She declined to apologize, asserting that her criticism was directed at the Israeli government, not the Israeli people. Tlaib defended her position, stating, "I will not be silenced, and I will not let you distort my words". She also highlighted that she was advocating for human rights and peaceful coexistence.                                   

                          Ayanna Pressley-above and below

                                       Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
                                                                 

American

 Ilhan Omar, from Mogadishu, Somalia

The Squad is an informal progressive and left-wing coalition in the U.S. House of Representatives forming part of the Democratic Caucus. All are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The squad was initially composed of four members elected in the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Resource:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/09/eric-adams-executive-orders-antisemitism

The Traitors Among Us

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

 There is a traitor among us. Mr. X.  To go against your own people" is essentially the definition of a "traitor," meaning someone who betrays their own group, community, or country by siding with or actively working against them; often associated with acts considered harmful or treasonous.  You'd never guess he would turn out this way, but he has.

He was born in 1941, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His father, Elias Ben Yehuda X , a Polish-Jewish immigrant, was born in  a town in Galicia that was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now in Poland. Mr. X 's father immigrated to the United States in 1921 and became a  salesman. His mother,  Mrs. X , was born in New York City. He has an older brother.  

X says he became interested in politics at an early age due to his family background. In the 1940s, many of his relatives in German-occupied Poland were murdered in the Holocaust.

X lived in  Brooklyn,  attended elementary school  where he won a borough championship on the basketball team. He attended Hebrew school in the afternoons and celebrated his bar mitzvah.  His older brother  said that during their childhood, the family never lacked food or clothing, but major purchases, "like curtains or a rug", were not affordable. 

A self-described democratic "socialist", Sanders is a progressive and left-wing populist who admires social democratic programs in Europe and supports workplace democracy via union democracy, worker cooperatives, and workers' management of public enterprises. He is a strong critic of contemporary neoliberal capitalism, which he calls "uber-capitalism", blaming it for such societal ills as declining life expectancy and rising diseases of despair.

Mr X is none other than Bernie Sanders.  He moved to Israel by himself and lived on a kibbutz for a short while as a young man with a problem he was wrestling with. Evidently he didn't like his possible job of milking cows.  Ely, a fellow kibbutznik, remembers: Ely didn’t recognize a 1963 photograph of Bernie Sanders, then in his early 20s. Sanders would have been one of dozens of overseas volunteers at that time. Ely says many of those who came to the kibbutz wanted to learn about socialism and how it works.

“Maybe that had an influence on (Sanders),” Ely says.

When he moved to the kibbutz, Ely admits he “didn’t know a thing about

 communism.” But he studied the political philosophy of Marxism-Leninism,

 the socialist ideology on which the former Soviet Union was based.

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Related videoHow Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary

“It was once communism. Today  it’s

 socialism. Call it whatever you want,” Ely says. “It’s a number of people 

who want to live together. And want to share everything together. We think

 that you have to take care of the weak (community members). The 

strong can deal with themselves.”

 He's an embarrassment to Jews who support Israel because he always votes against our tiny country, a re-connection to our ancient Israel that we lost in 70 CE to the Romans.  We've waited over 2,000 years to regain our roots, to regain it legally, the place our history and culture started.  

Bernie married a girl of the Jewish faith in 1964 that ended after 2 years.  Then he married a Catholic girl 22 years later, but they have had no children.  He has visited the Pope.  

 He criticized Israel's actions during the 2014 Gaza war.  

He fell in with the wrong crowd who knew how to win his heart:  The Squad.  A day before a cease-fire was declared on May 20,2021,  Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) introduced a House joint resolution of disapproval for the sale (probably of arms to Israel). “Approving this sale now, while failing to even try to use it as leverage for a ceasefire, sends a clear message to the world—the U.S. is not interested in peace, and does not care about the human rights and lives of Palestinians,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a press statement.  This sounds like a statement from  an enemy from Iraq, not an American Representative.  

The next day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a similar resolution in the Senate. It marked the end of a 15-day review period during which lawmakers could take action to block the administration from issuing licenses for the deals. 

 Bernie, our own self-hating Jew, taking his usual stand against Israel to be on the Palestinian side for G-d knows why, considering who he is. He's been consistent, that's for sure. He stepped outside his faith and education a long time ago, certainly unschooled in the history of Israel and all they have tried to do to help Palestinians from the time of working with Emir Feisal in the 1920s  or even before. It was the Sherif of Jerusalem, otherwise known as Haj Amin al-Husseini, who turned the Palestinians against Jews so much with riots in 1929, etc. Since then, it's been a hard row to hoe.

Sanders’ office told Arms Control Today on May 25 that Sanders and his colleagues “would continue to push for greater debate to make sure that U.S. arms sales do not support human rights abuses.” Sanders, is it wrong in your mind to defend yourself when attacked?  That's the situation with Israel.  They are always on the defensive; not the offensive. It was 2021 and Bernie took the stand against Israel in the Senate.  

Aug. 5, 2021, at 9:48 a.m. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel on Thursday escalated its response to rocket attacks the previous day from Lebanon by launching rare airstrikes on its northern neighbor, the army and Lebanese officials said. ... The United States swiftly condemned the attacks on Israel   The overnight airstrikes in southern Lebanon were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel's new eight-party governing coalition is trying to keep peace under a fragile cease-fire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas' militant rulers in Gaza in May. Several incidents leading up to this week's rocket fire from Lebanon have focused attention on Israel's northern border. The United States swiftly condemned the attacks on Israel.

But progressive Democrats have been looking for a more explicit demand from Biden for a cease-fire.

Update: 8pm EST: The squad did it !   A bill was in the way (Sanders)  of giving Israel funds for the Iron Dome.  During the 11 day attack, 1,500 rockets rained down on Israel but the Iron Dome stopped 1,400 of them.  Ortega is against Israeli survival, I suppose.  Well, the whole squad was, including Sanders.  

Today Sanders is doing it again.  He tried to block a planned US arms sales to Israel, but the Senate managed to block it.  The failure of the long-shot effort highlights that, despite criticism from the left that the Biden administration and Israel are not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza, there remains widespread bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for US military assistance to Israel.

If I thought like Bernie, with his family history, I would read all I could or go to lectures as to why Israel's existence was necessary to my people before I would ever pass bills that would harm Israel or its people. I know there is a small % of such people who stand with the Palestinians, and are against their own Jewish family. 

Such a group was Neturei Karta (Aramaic: נָטוֹרֵי קַרְתָּא, romanized: nāṭōrē qartāʾ, lit. 'Guardians of the City') is an anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine Haredi Jewish group. Founded in Jerusalem in 1937 by Amram Blau and Aharon Katzenelbogen, Neturei Karta was formed as an offshoot of the Aguda movement. 

Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP) is a Jewish activist group based in Britain that describes itself as advocating for human and civil rights, and economic and political freedom, for the Palestinian people.  We have had such a group in the US as well.  I could just scream!  I know all the negotiating going on and Hamas isn't giving us back any hostage!   

       Going against Israel, more Bernie Sanders.  It's a sad state of affairs today when I read or hear about such a contrary people who know no facts.  In fact, they don't even know that Israel gave the Palestinians Gaza, moved out so they could move in, left their homes for them and their businesses for them to take over and what did we receive?  rockets, mortars and missiles shot at us immediately and never stopping.  With the implementation of the plan, IDF installations and forces were removed and over 9000 Israeli citizens living in 25 settlements were evicted. By 22 September 2005, Israel's withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip to the 1967 Green Line, and the eviction of the four settlements in Samaria, was completed.

(Apr. 26, 2024 / JNS)

One of the standard talking points of those seeking to rationalize and even justify the efforts of those supporting the survival of Hamas and the defeat of Israel since the Oct. 7 massacres is the fact that many Jews are among the ranks of these “critics” of the Jewish state. So, when observers point to the blatant antisemitism that has become a feature of the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests that have proliferated on North American college campuses and elsewhere in the last six months, those backing the demonstrations simply say they can’t be against Jews because Jews are among the participants.

The Senate votes come as scrutiny over US support for Israel’s war against Hamas has intensified as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has grown worse amid Israel’s ongoing military campaign. The US is Israel’s biggest military supplier. 

The war, which was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack, has raged for more than a year, killing at least 43,000 people, according to the Gazan health ministry. Efforts to secure a ceasefire and release of the Israel hostages held by Hamas have floundered, but there is more optimism about securing an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Bernie is a big fly in the ointment, against his own people's survival!  To me, it's like something Benedict Arnold did to the USA, or Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian, did to his country with his dealings with the Nazis. In December 1939, fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling travelled to Berlin from Oslo for a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler.  Quisling suggested to Hitler that the British were planning to move into Norway for their own strategic needs.  Norway hadn’t been a concern for the Nazis but the meeting alarmed Hitler and within months Germany started its invasion of Norway.  From that moment, Quisling was consigned into history as a traitor. So much so, his name has become a byword for traitor in numerous languages. Bernie's  parents and grandparents would not be proud.  Bernie has learned nothing !  

I need Golda Meir to stand with me and explain how people can be so blind.  "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children," she said. "But we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."  We don't take lives on purpose is the message.  We do all we can to save lives, but we're not about to sit back and be picked off, either.  We have the right to our land and are willing to fight for it.  

  Resource:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/20/politics/senate-vote-arms-sales-to-israel/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-growing-squad-against-israel-with.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neturei_Karta#:~:text=Neturei%20Karta%20(Aramaic%3A%20%D7%A0%D6%B8%D7%98%D7%95%D6%B9%D7%A8%D6%B5%D7%99%20%D7%A7%D6%B7%D7%A8%D6%B0%D7%AA%D6%B8%D6%BC%D7%90,pro-Palestine%20Haredi%20Jewish%20group.&text=Founded%20in%20Jerusalem%20in%201937,offshoot%20of%20the%20Aguda%20movem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_for_Justice_for_Palestinians#:~:text=Jews%20for%20Justice%20for%20Palestinians%20(JJP)%20is%20a%20Jewish%20activist,freedom%2C%20for%20the%20Palestinian%20people.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/bernie-sanders-kibbutz-volunteer-israel/index.html