A Stabbing in New York

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast — "A Stabbing in New York"

Date: July 24, 2026
Host: John Podhoretz, with Abe Greenwald and Seth Mandel
Topic: Antisemitism, violence against Jews and Israelis, and political rhetoric in New York City

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Episode Overview

This episode, titled "A Stabbing in New York," addresses the recent stabbing of two individuals—one Jewish and one Asian—on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The hosts discuss the implications of this act in the broader context of rising antisemitism, global harassment of Israelis and Jews, and the escalating rhetoric of Mayor Zoran Mamdani. The conversation critically examines the links between political speech, public safety, and the growing atmosphere of hostility towards Jews in New York and around the world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Stabbing Incident and Antisemitic Violence

• Overview of the Attack

  • Two people, an Asian man (57) and a Jewish man wearing a kippah (50), were stabbed in succession by Raoul Morales, 51, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” during both attacks ([00:41]).
  • The Jewish victim’s injuries were severe, with the screwdriver penetrating close to his heart, but he is expected to recover ([00:41]).

• Community Impact and Fears

  • John shares a conversation with a friend concerned that the logic of Mayor Mamdani's statements could endanger any Israeli, including her daughter serving in the IDF, when visiting New York ([01:24]).
  • Abe emphasizes the escalation: “We’re now in what feels like open season, and it's partially open season because the mayor of New York, he can't say stop.” ([37:15])

2. Political Rhetoric and Its Consequences

• Mayor Mamdani’s Statements

  • Mamdani suggested he would attempt to arrest Israeli PM Netanyahu for war crimes upon his UN visit, though he later admitted he lacked the authority ([00:41]).
  • Mamdani’s explicit condemnation of Israel’s military actions has, the hosts argue, created a hostile climate and emboldened violence ([13:55], [19:07]).

• Public and Political Reaction

  • The mayor released a statement referencing mental health before hate crime, which the hosts perceive as downplaying antisemitic intent ([13:55]).
  • Notable Jewish Democrats in NYC, such as Assemblywoman Neely Rozik and City Comptroller Mark Levine, condemned the rising rhetoric and violence ([24:29]-[26:16]).

• Normalization of Rhetoric

  • Seth Mandel: “This is what [Mamdani] wants... The pro-Hamas mob standing outside of synagogues. This is the change that he can affect on the city.” ([28:18])

3. Global Rise in Harassment of Israelis and Jews

• International Incidents

  • Assaults on Israelis in Mongolia, Cyprus, and other countries have become frequent ([06:06]).
  • Israeli travelers are often confronted, harassed, or asked to attest that they were not involved in “war crimes” ([05:41]).

• Longstanding Antisemitic Sentiment

  • John recounts that even decades ago, traveling Israelis were wary of being identified as such, and now the fear is far more justified and acute ([08:27]-[10:18]).

4. The Changing Nature of Public Safety for Jews

• Historic Shifts

  • The hosts compare past periods in New York’s history where Jews faced crime-related risks versus today’s targeted hostility, which feels institutionalized and endorsed by the city's leadership ([42:55]).

• Individual and Community Decisions

  • The episode closes with reflections on whether Jews should “stay and fight” for their city or prioritize safety by leaving—posing real questions about civic duty and personal security ([59:31]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“The presumption is that if you are Israeli, you’re a war criminal. And until you can convince people that you’re not a war criminal…”
— John Podhoretz ([05:41])

“We’re now in what feels like open season, and it's partially open season because the mayor of New York, he can't say stop. He says it has no place in our city. Sure it does. He is the mayor of the city. He is a hater of Jews.”
— Abe Greenwald ([37:15])

“This is what [Mamdani] wants. The pro-Hamas mob standing outside of synagogues. This is the change that he can affect on the city.”
— Seth Mandel ([28:18])

“The goal of terrorism as a strategy is to disturb the very ground that people walk on... and so the person who is stimulating the feeling of being terrorized in New York among Jews is the city's mayor.”
— Abe Greenwald ([45:47])

“This feels like an encouragement, not of just... Because this is not just broad disorder. Dinkins was criticized for not doing more to protect the Jewish community during a time when they faced attacks in his city. Mamdani is the one encouraging people to, to feel angry toward Israelis or Jews who might be Israelis…”
— John Podhoretz ([43:31])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:41: Incident recap and immediate aftermath
• 05:41: Global harassment of Israelis and implication of war crimes
• 08:27: Longstanding discomfort for traveling Israelis, escalation to open hostility
• 13:55: Story of Shai Davidai and casual antisemitism in NYC
• 19:07: Discussion of the mayor’s statement and public reaction
• 24:29 – 26:16: Responses from Jewish Democratic officials in NYC
• 28:18: Seth Mandel on the calculated nature of Mamdani’s rhetoric
• 37:15: Abe Greenwald on the “open season” feeling in New York
• 42:55: Analysis of changes in public safety and political endorsement of hostility
• 45:47: The psychological impact of terrorism and public leadership’s role
• 59:31: Personal reflections on staying vs. leaving New York in the face of danger

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Closing Reflection

The episode delivers a sobering, urgent analysis of how violent incidents and political rhetoric combine to create an atmosphere of fear and alienation for Jews in New York. The hosts emphasize that the normalization of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments, especially from political leaders, is driving both specific incidents of violence and a broader cultural shift. They challenge listeners to consider both their responsibility to resist and protect their communities, and the painful choices individuals face between standing their ground and seeking safety elsewhere.

Final thought:

“We have to fight, we have to beat them, and we have to… stay and fight... But is it cowardice or prudence to leave? Is it a lack of civic duty to save my city from this barbaric evil, or is it what I need to do to protect my family?”
— Abe Greenwald ([59:31])

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This summary covers all major points and provides a roadmap for any listener or reader to grasp the scope and urgency of the issues discussed.

Transcript

[John Pudhoritz]

Foreign. Expect the worst.

[Abe Greenwald]

Some drink champagne.

[John Pudhoritz]

Some die at first.

[Abe Greenwald]

No way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, July 24, 2026. I am Jon Pudhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

And senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[John Pudhoritz]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think, as everybody knows, yesterday afternoon on the Upper west side of Manhattan, a man with A screwdriver stabbed two people in succession. One a 57 year old Asian man, the other a 50 year old Jewish man wearing a kippah. It's in both cases he shouted Allahu Akbar as he did the stabbing. The wound to the Jewish man was severe. It sort of penetrated his, penetrated his back almost to his heart, though he is apparently gonna walk out of the hospital today. He said he was trying to keep himself conscious and get the screwdriver out of his back because he thought he was about to die. The person arrested, his name is Morales. He is Raoul Morales. He's 51 years old. He lives in the neighborhood and was apparently sort of cornered in the lobby of his own building, a housing project on 88th and Amsterdam. And of course, this comes 24 to 48 hours after these successive statements by Mayor Zoran Mamdani. First, the interview in which he said that they were looking into arresting Benjamin Netanyahu for his crimes against nature and humanity and evil and all of that when he comes to New York for the UN General assembly in September. And then the statement that he made staring directly into camera for two and a half minutes saying Netanyahu is a war criminal and he deserves to be fried in acid, but that in fact, he does not have the statutory power to arrest him. As a friend of mine said, a friend of mine called me who has a kid who is going from the United States, grown up in the United States, to Israel upon graduating, having just graduated high school, to join the Israel Defense Forces as a lone soldier. And her question to me was, or her point to me was the logic of the Mamdani statement would suggest that since Israel's military behavior constitutes a war crime, any individual Israeli serving in the IDF theoretically could be considered a war criminal. And that how can she be sure that her daughter, who is not in the government, would be safe from a test case effort to arrest in New York when she comes home for, you know, Passover or something to test the bounds of whether or not she could be arrested and tried as A war criminal in New York City. And I didn't have an answer for her because my first thing was I said, look, bom doni very clearly in the statement was referring specifically to Netanyahu alone. And then as I thought it through, you know, there is wiggle room there. The war crime isn't just in the issuing of the order, right? If you believe these are war crimes, it is in the carrying out of the order. Mamdani's position is that the entire Israeli position in the West Bank, Gaza, what it's doing in Lebanon, period, is illegitimate. And therefore any Israeli action of any kind, unless it would be, say, directly, immediately defensive, like someone is coming at you with a knife or a gun or something like that, would constitute a war crime. Well, the.

[Seth Mandel]

John, I just want to say the global harassment campaign against Israelis is based on that logic. When Israelis are harassed or detained or made the subject of Internet searches online, the justification is that, well, they have to serve in the idf and the IDF is this criminal, is this war criming enterprise, and therefore they're, they're subject to, you know, to punishment for it.

[John Pudhoritz]

So yeah, they've been asked to sign statements. Israeli tourists have been asked to sign statements. I believe it was in Tokyo, attesting to the fact that they had not been involved in war crimes. So the presumption is that if you are Israeli, you're a war criminal. And until you can convince people that you're not a war criminal

[Abe Greenwald]

in. Israelis have been attacked in the past week in Mongolia, in Cyprus, various other places. I read and unfortunately I didn't properly copy what I had read. Arguments being made should be explained that when Israelis finish their mandatory military service, which they begin when they serve at the age of 18 and then they're out at 21, they often spend six months traveling before they move on with their lives. It's sort of a classic kind of like roomspringa. They go around, they see the world after their military service and then they go to college and they often travel around Southeast Asia because it's cheap and because they can get there. It's pretty, you know, it's obviously reasonably close to go to Thailand, for example. It's five or six hour flight, I think, and they backpack or they, you know, my, my nephew did this. Two of my nephew, you know, two of my nephews, you know, they backpack, they go, they tour, they see all kinds of places and, and there are now explicit ideas that what you are supposed to do. Organizations are now preaching to ordinary citizens in these countries that it is their moral obligation to harass Israelis and to do, you know, act against them, since they are acting against Palestinians and Arabs and that basically declaring kind of open season on traveling Jews in foreign lands. This is not an exaggeration, as Abe says. We have incidents now almost every day where this is happening. And the clear result of this is going to be that this, it's likely that this touring that is done will stop or that Israelis will come here but not go anywhere else.

[John Pudhoritz]

I have, years ago I had this conversation, but I have a cousin who lives in Hawaii and he once told a story. This was years ago, even before, you know, not just before the current war, but before the 2014 war in Gaza. And I remember him once telling a story about how he, as a Jewish guy in Hawaii, a Jew from New Jersey in Hawaii, he, he loves to try to keep up his Judaism however he can. And he likes to speak Hebrew and there's nobody really to speak Hebrew to. So he always loved to practice his Hebrew on traveling Israelis. Hawaii is also one of these places that, you know, is out of the way, idyllic and, you know, just a nice place to go to rest and relax when you need it. And I remember him telling the story that he was trying to be welcoming, like he wanted to signal to Israelis, I'm a Jew too, you know, if you need anything, I'm like, you know, like speaking in code almost by speaking Hebrew. And they would, they would like immediately take off in the other direction that, that Israelis were so uncomfortable with being seen as Israelis that they tried to avoid conversations with people who would speak to them in Hebrew because they didn't want to be heard speaking Hebrew or overheard having a conversation with someone speaking Hebrew. So this was, you know, again, this was probably 30 years ago, 25 years ago, something like that. So it's, you can, it's that magnified. But this is a real thing, a long standing thing that has become obviously much worse in the time since.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, so you're giving this a much longer timeframe. But what we have now are actual attacks on a daily basis, right?

[John Pudhoritz]

I'm saying it has escalated from Israelis being nervous about being seen as Israelis to people actually being surrounded and physically assaulted for speaking Hebrew. And the people who were concerned about it before, we've entered an entirely new era which has, which has, you know, entirely, I mean, entirely vindicated anybody who was nervous about traveling as an Israeli. But if you talk to Israelis now, they will tell you it's so much worse now. There was always this kind of I wonder how people will respond to me being Israeli. And now it's every other day. Yesterday, a story about a woman who was eating at a cafe and then saw a sign that said, no Israelis. This was somewhere in Asia. And. And she asked for her check and to leave. And when the guy found out that she was Israeli, it was like a whole. Now it's a confrontation if someone hears you speak Hebrew or finds out that you're Israeli.

[Abe Greenwald]

So Shai Davidai, the former Columbia professor, who was the foremost economics professor, who was the foremost academic voice against anti Semitism at Columbia, so much so that the administration then started investigating him and banning him from. He literally, a professor of economics, was like, had his card, his entry card to the campus deactivated because the camp, because they believed that he was harassing other people at Colombia by demanding that they stand up against antisemitism. Anyway, Shai David yesterday published a blog on the Times of Israel website. So he's a provocateur. So he printed up a T shirt that says, this is what a Zionist looks like. It's black with white lettering. And he was down, I believe in Washington. Oh, in the Elizabeth Street Garden, which is in Greenwich Village, between Greenwich Village and Soho and the Lower east side. And here's what he writes. And this is before everything that happened yesterday, right? I don't know how he writes, but I noticed that something was off before he even opened his mouth. Surrounded by crowds of people eating lunch, NYU students posing for graduation photos. My mother and I sat in the shade, people watching and taking in the improbable peacefulness of Elizabeth Street Garden. Then, as if out of nowhere, a tattooed, long haired man, someone who looked as though in another life he might have been part of my social circle, did a double take at my shirt. Are you proud of what you're wearing? He asked, his irritation unmistakable. I am, I replied. I actually made it. That was all it took. Keeping his distance, not out of respect, but so I could only assume out of pure hatred, he began shouting. Before long, he launched into one ideological talking point after another, citing debunked statistics, making false accusations and recycling slogans he seemed to mistake for arguments, though I remained calm, responded respectfully, and repeatedly tried to engage him in civil conversation. He only grew more agitated. Eventually he told my mother and me to go back where we came from.

[Seth Mandel]

He.

[Abe Greenwald]

He wasn't drunk, he wasn't high, he wasn't mentally unwell. He was just another hate filled guy eating lunch in downtown Manhattan. I was not shaken because one man hated Me. I was shaken by how casually that hatred had erupted in one of the most beautiful corners of New York City. I was shaken because hatred had simply become part of the landscape. I was shaken because nobody even seemed to bat an eye. I hadn't insulted him, I hadn't threatened him, I hadn't mocked him or even looked in his direction before he spoke to me. I hadn't started a conversation, let into an argument. My mother and I had simply been sitting in the shade. All it took was a black cotton T shirt. All it took was a black cotton T shirt. All it takes is a yarmulka. All it takes is the idea that someone may be Jewish because the first person stabbed in New York was not was Asian. But Raul Morales still shouted Allahu Akbar as he stabbed him. So he may easily have mistaken him for being a Jew, then found another one and stabbed him unmistakably. And you know, this is the neighborhood that I live in. This is the neighborhood that I work in. The stabbing took place about 50ft from the door of Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon king, founded in 1924, one of the sort of epicenters of sort of the remaining old time Jewish New York culture. An appetizing store with, you know, people go to brunch and all that. I'd been going there my entire life, so much so that I had AP European History class in 1977. There were five of us in this class at my very small school. And we would actually have class at Barney Greengrass on Sunday afternoons. So that was 50 years ago this week. You know, today I'm not this week, because it's July. So it's 25ft from Barney Greengrass that this stabbing happened. And here is what Zoramdani said after six hours. I noted, by the way, stabbing took place at 1:30pm Mamdani has been following the Rudy Giuliani manual. As mayor, which is active, he's active. He goes around, he shows up. If there's a water main break, if there's a fire in a building, if there's a cat in a tree, he's there making a statement on New York One, our local channel. He's three times a day. That is his. The way he is conducting himself as mayor is making himself visible at every event that occurs in the city that gets attention. He did not show up at the corner of 86th and Amsterdam. He was not present at the corner of 86th and Amsterdam. I was standing there for an hour. There were sort of three cops. They cordoned off Things. I mean, they caught the guy, so there was no further fear. Though there had been low flying helicopters when they were looking for him. He never showed up on scene, on site to make a statement. Instead, he released a statement on X. I have been briefed on today's horrifying stabbings on the Upper west side where an Asian man and a Jewish man were attacked. Note the parallelism. An Asian man and a Jewish man mentioning the Asian man first, which is fair if you are doing it chronologically, since the Asian man was attacked first. According to witness and victim statements, the perpetrator yelled Allahu Akbar during both attacks. I am relieved that both victims are in stable condition. The NYPD responded immediately and arrested Raul Morales in connection with both assaults. And I am grateful to the officers for their swift response. The NYPD's initial investigation suggests that mental health may have been a factor. They are also evaluating these stabbings as potential hate crimes. And these hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city. Period. End of discussion. That is it. That is what he said. Hate crime, mental health, mental health first, hate crime second. Guy stabs two people yelling Allahu Akbar. One of them wearing a kippah. He has blood on his hands. He did this. If that guy is crazy, he was activated by Mamdani's statements in the last three days. If he isn't crazy, he was activated by Mandani's statements in the past three days. I don't have proof of that, but, you know, he's not that Gabby Giffords. The guy who shot Gabby Giffords and then it turned out, was doing so because he thought that there was a conspiracy to deconstruct grammar and ruin language, because that was his schizophrenic fantasy. He used the cry that jihadists use as they kill Jews or try to kill Jews. This is the mayor of New York City. So we were talking earlier this week about how bad the statement was. And, you know, we say things like, whoa, you can't do this because it's dangerous. Like, it's dangerous. You can't do this. Like, what if something happens? Well, here it happened.

[Eric Gertler]

From the State House to the courthouse, in the emergency room, and in the classroom, Americans are losing trust in their leaders. In a 2025 U.S. news and World Report survey, 85% of Americans said government leaders care more about their own power than the people they serve. 73% are disappointed in healthcare leaders, 72% in business, and 68% in education. But there are still leaders worth believing in. I'm Eric Gertler, CEO and executive chairman of U.S. news World Report. This is the Best Leaders Podcast sponsored by the Noble Reach Foundation. On this show, we'll go deeper into the stories, who, challenges and lessons of extraordinary leaders across public service, business, healthcare and education. You can find the Best Leaders podcast from U.S. news World Report on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Pudhoritz]

I think the first thing I would note is that is the New York Times story the other day that explained very clearly that when Mamdani was interviewed by the New York Times and said, you know, we're talking about arresting Bibi and my legal options, he was lying. The Times has it that in fact he already was told to stop being a sociopath about it. Not in those terms, although maybe in those terms, who knows? I assume that Jessica Tisch is at some point going to get tired of this game that he's playing with the lives of millions of New Yorkers. But he was told, he knew it and he lied. So he lies to the New York Times that are still ongoing. The NYPD is so bothered by this that they say to him, we're. We're preparing a statement because it's not just Mamdani's reputation, it's also Jessica Tish's and the nypd. And so they were going to prepare a statement and put out a statement saying, we're not arresting anybody. And Momdani saw from that, decided to preempt his own NYPD answering his question and make a video where he called Netanyahu a war criminal and all that stuff. The video that we're talking about now. So Mamdani has been lying to everybody about this for a fair period of time, to the extent that he's alarming the police department that is in charge of keeping order in Mamdani's city. So that's, that's the first thing to note. The second thing is that we can look at the statements by others also and see how they react. There is a state assembly woman from Queens, Neely Rozik, who, Who tweeted, if you can't fully condemn calls to globalize the Intifada, you should be prepared to confront the normalizing of that rhetoric. Words inflame, embolden, and lead to violence against Jewish communities. Leaders must reject hate clearly, consistently, and without qualification. An obviously true statement that is almost like from a children's book, right? Like, treat others how you would want to be treated and, you know, share your. Your, your cookies at snack time or something like this is such basic. But it had to be put out in a statement by a state assembly woman because that basic humanity is not. Is not taken for granted anymore and is absent from not just the mayor, but clearly other people around him. There we have a statement from Mark Levine, who is the controller, the city controller. He has been critical of.

[Abe Greenwald]

He lives in the neighborhood, by the way.

[John Pudhoritz]

He lives in the neighborhood, and he has been behind the scenes trying to counter some of the bad trends that Mamdani has started within the government. He's not really been very public about it, although occasionally he does. He said this is his statement. We are demanding that the targeting of the Jewish community, that the singling out of the Jewish community, that the endless demonization of this community stopped. Okay? So that again, this is not. This is not some right wing figure. This is, you know, a Jewish Democrat from the Upper west side who is clearly unnerved, as are all the other Jewish Democrats who live on the, on the Upper west side. This is not a partisan thing. These are people who are not, you know, these are people who are not right wingers who are all coming out and saying the rhetoric is causing disorder and it's causing real problems and it's making people unsafe and the rhetoric should stop. The last statement I'll read from you is from Brad Lander who has, who won his seat in Congress thanks to the.

[Abe Greenwald]

He's not in Congress yet. He will be. But he won his primary.

[John Pudhoritz]

Won the election.

[Abe Greenwald]

Won the primary election.

[John Pudhoritz]

He won the primary election. Right. And he'll be. And he, he is. He won the primary election over Dan Goldman who's a sitting congressman and you know, intends replace him with the help of, you know, cafe anti Semitic cafe owners and the mayor of New York City and all that. He, he's, he was, he's riding a sort of anti Zionist wave, even if he doesn't consider himself an anti Zionist. Here is his statement. And it is an example of what happens when a person who normally at the place in their skull where they have a brain, they have scrambled eggs. Instead of this awful incident, a likely Latino man stabbing a Jewish man and an Asian man while allegedly shouting Allahu Akbar on the Upper west side is simultaneously. And then he gives a list, frightening and depressing. Almost certainly an anti Semitic hate crime. Quite likely an anti Asian hate crime. Probably a mental health issue. Not the fault of the mayor for calling Netanyahu a war criminal. So this incident is everything and nothing. It's bad, but it has no cause. It's an anti Semitic hate crime. But anti Semitic hate crimes come out of the air. There's no way to prevent them. And they're certainly not. Nobody is ever incited to commit an anti Semitic hate crime. It just, all this stuff just is. And it's also nobody's fault and has no cause. And that is the sort of thing that the other statements avoid, obviously. But also if Lander continues to have this place and if he's seated in Congress and he has this pedestal, that sort of thing is going to, that sort of thing is going to continue.

[Seth Mandel]

You know, I think New York has to reckon with the fact that this is what Mamdani wants. The attacks, yes. The people flooding the streets when Netanyahu comes to town for the UN General assembly and God knows what else that's going to bring. Yes, this is what he wants. The pro Hamas mob standing outside of synagogues. This is what he wants. This is the change that he can affect on the city. He's going to be blocked from pulling off all sorts, a number of socialist schemes and whatever else.

[Abe Greenwald]

But.

[Seth Mandel]

But what he can shape is this culture, which has always been everything to him since his sort of political emergence. This is why he said the IDF boot, the NYPD boot on your neck has been laced by the idf. This is why he's going after publicly New York Israeli tied institutions such as the Technion. This is part of the plan. This is what has happened. So I just, I'm emphasizing this because there's a lot of like, where are you, Mom? Donnie, where are you on this? Why aren't you saying? I'm not saying from you, John, but I see a lot of this out there and it's like, what do you mean, where is he? It's going to plan. This is what he's here for. And I just think, as I said from the start, when he got elected, I have such a hard time writing about and talking about and thinking about his mayoralty in the normal terms having to do with policy, even though his policies are radical and terrible and ruinous because. But, no but because to me, the bigger issue is the ways in which he wants to permanently shape this culture to be anti Jewish. And that is precisely what's happening.

[Abe Greenwald]

So I. You didn't call me out, but I understand what you meant by saying when you say, where is he? Why wasn't he showing up? That is just something that would be part of. If I were writing an indictment and trying to adduce evidence of his complicity and knowing complicity, that I would say that he didn't show up. When he shows up to everything else, I'm not surprised. Like you, I've no reason to be surprised. This is what was so frightening about his rise in the spring of 2025. And that was so discontinuous. What made him an entirely new kind of political figure in the United States is that he was running for an office, taking a stance against one of the city's largest minority groups. I mean, jews make up 11% of the population of New York City. There was a time in 1980 years ago when Jews made up 31% of New York City. That number is now down to 9 or 10 or 11. It's not huge. Way more. They're way more, you know, Hispanics, but you still wouldn't knowingly go after them. And the Jewish state, ordinarily that would not be the political play. Like, why do that? Like, it's dumb. Make yourself as banal as possible. Even if you hold these views, keep it to yourself until you take office before anybody can respond to it. And he saw something different and New he did. Graham Platner did. Abdul El Sayed is seeing it in Michigan. Adam Hammawi saw it in New Jersey. That this stuff is what is helping get them elected. That they are giving voice to an increasingly common view in Democratic circles. But because these are overwhelmingly Democratic places that these people are running in, except for El Sayed, but he's only now running in a Democratic primary, that this is good for him. It was good for him to say that the IDF's jackboot was laced by the NYPD puts together two of the favorite. The other way around.

[Seth Mandel]

I made the same mistake.

[Abe Greenwald]

What?

[Seth Mandel]

The NYPD's jackboot was laced.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, sorry.

[Seth Mandel]

Okay.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right. Anyway. But it puts these two institutions together. It's a beautiful kind of poetic almost fulfillment, right? You go from defunding the police to, you know, to Israel's the war criminal. And you put them together in one sentence and there you have the Democratic left's view from 2020 onward to 2026. So I don't think that, you know, he. I think it would have been interesting for him to be on the site on scene. It was a weird time of day. It was like 2 o' clock in the afternoon. Weren't a lot of people around, a lot of cop cars. As I said, there were low flying helicopters. Had he shown up there, it's not like it would have been interesting to see whether people started yelling at him or saying, you know, you did. How do you explain yourself? Or whatever. Except nobody, it's possible nobody would have been there. And why would nobody have been there? Yesterday was Tisha, Bob, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. The day that we commemorate not only the destruction of the first temple in 586, but the expulsion of Jews from the holy land in 70 and 135 AD or CE, the beginning of the Inquisition, the Khmelnytsky pogroms. And now there is another incident taking place on the 9th of Av, the month of Av, on the Jewish calendar. And the Jewish man who came out and was stabbed was leaving the Orthodox synagogue up the block, which is called the Jewish Center. And the Jewish center was built in 1925 by a very brilliant, unorthodox Orthodox, then Orthodox rabbi, but a very unorthodox religious figure named Mordecai Kaplan. And he had this visionary idea, which is to build a synagogue that would also be a communal place for Jews to congregate because so it's 10 stories high, it has a gym, it had a pool, it had meeting rooms, it had places to have classes, all of that. And this, you know, this is essentially one of the earliest JCCs in America. And this was his conception that put it in this neighborhood, a very Jewish neighborhood, even then in the 1920s. And it's a home. It's a home for people. And he was leaving synagogue after having davened Mincha. Mincha is the afternoon prayer. There are three prayer services a day. Shahrit, Mincha and Mariv. And he was davening Mincha. He finished and was apparently walking back to his apartment, which he was packing up because he had already moved to Florida, but he was in town to pack up the rest of his stuff. We don't know why he moved to Florida. Maybe he'll give interviews. We'll see if he left because of Mamdani or not. So there was no one around because,

[John Pudhoritz]

well, whatever the reason he left, presumably he does not regret his decision.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right. And that, of course, leads to the other question. What is going on here in New York? Spreading out nationwide and then globally is not. You know, wrote a piece, the first piece we had published on after October 7, when the demonstrations inside the United States started against Israel, I wrote a piece called They're Coming After Us. And that was. We published it, I guess, in the December issue, I believe, of 2023, or maybe the January issue of 2024, I can't remember. I mean, that was. They're coming after us because they're protesting us and they're closing down the Brooklyn Bridge and they're doing all this, the violence and all the statements on campus and all of that. The violence hadn't started yet. And now we're in. We've now moved into, you know, isolated incidents of violence in Colorado, in Washington, D.C. you know, desecrations of synagogues, protests outside synagogues, all of that. Now we're moving. And of course, there have been attacks on visible Jews in New York for a decade now. People with kipot, people with pais, people dressed in black garb, mostly in Brooklyn. But those also sort of isolated incidents, though, if you took them together, they become a mosaic. We're now in what feels like open season, and it's partially open season, because the mayor of New York, he can't say stop. He says it has no place in our city. Sure it does. He is the mayor of the city. He is a hater of Jews. He is a hater of the Jewish state. He is a hater of the idea of Jewish nationalism, and he is the mayor of the city. So not only does it have a place, it has A pride place. It has a place of pride, it has a place of honor, it has a place, almost an affair place. In part because he did us the service of not being disingenuous and saying while he was running exactly what he would be do and say, including that he would try to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, which was one of his campaign promises. Now I don't know what to say to people when they say to me, how much longer can we live here? I live in this neighborhood. You know. Two of my kids are off. One's going off to college, one's off at college for most of the year. One of them graduated from college and will be actually in Israel likely next year. But I have an 11th. I have a kid going into 11th grade, walks to school every day. Maybe I won't let him walk anymore. Maybe I'll insist that he take the bus in this neighborhood because the mayor is signaling that he looks favorably upon anti Jewish action where I live. Gonna talk to you about Brooklyn Bedding. Cause when I first laid down on my kids new Brooklyn Bedding mattress, I immediately felt a difference. So did they. I bought two more for two other kids. That's what's going on in my house. This isn't just your average bed. It's a handcrafted, precision built comfort manufactured right here in the us. You don't just sleep on a Brooklyn Bedding mattress, you experience it. I'm big on buying things I know will last and Brooklyn Bedding feels like that kind of purchase. They design and assemble every mattress in an Arizona factory. No middlemen, no gimmicks, just top tier quality. If you sleep hot Brooklyn bedding use Glaciotex covers, copper infused foams and temperature regulating materials to help keep you cool and comfortable all night long. So go to BrooklynBedding.com and use my promo code commentary at checkout to get 30% off site wide during the summer sale. That's BrooklynBetting.com and promo code commentary for 30% off site wide exclusive with my code. BrooklynBetting.com promo code commentary

[Eric Gertler]

from the State House to the courthouse, in the emergency room and in the classroom, Americans are losing trust in their leaders. In a 2025 U.S. news and World Report survey, 85% of Americans said government leaders care more about their own power than the people they serve. 73% are disappointed in healthcare leaders, 72% in business and 68% in education. But there are still leaders worth believing in. I'm Eric Gertler, CEO and executive chairman of U.S. news World Report. This is the Best Leaders podcast sponsored by the Noble Reach Foundation. On this show, we'll go deeper into the stories, challenges and lessons of extraordinary leaders across public service, business, healthcare and education. You can find the Best Leaders podcast from U.S. news World Report on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Pudhoritz]

What I, what I really. What, what makes me nervous for the city about what you describe is that there have been periods of tension in the city in the past. Periods of violence against Jews, street violence against Jews, followed by long periods of not street violence against Jews. Whatever you want to say. But what makes me nervous about this, what, what looks different is that in the past, New York, when there were problems with violence in New York City, it was a crime problem.

[Seth Mandel]

Usually.

[John Pudhoritz]

I mean, at, at its root, there were, there was anti Semitism, obviously, and there was Borough park. But I mean, in, in a larger that there are, there are these periods that New York went through that where crime dominated the city and it dominated people's, you know, understanding of the city, where they would go and how they would get to work and which subways they would take and at what times and what streets they would walk and all that stuff that you had to have a sort of crime map in your mind to navigate the city or else, you know, stick to daylight hours. And, and this is something that. And of course, when things are bad and they flare up, Jews get blamed. This feels like a, a concretizing of animus toward Jews. This feels like an encouragement, not of just. Because this is not just broad disorder. Right. You could, you could. Dinkins was critic. Mayor Dinkins was criticized for not doing more to protect the Jewish community during a time when they faced attacks in his city. Mamdani is the one encouraging people to, to feel angry toward Israelis or Jews who might be Israelis or, or Jews who believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, which really just means Jews. He is encouraging a bad feeling now. He's not telling somebody, go out and stab a Jew with a screwdriver, but he doesn't have to. But the worrying thing about this is that in the past there were these ups and downs, you know, these peaks and valleys. And, and Mamdani is behaving in a way that threatens to solidify a kind of city position that is hostile to Jews. And that sort of thing can outlive and outlast him and his term as mayor. And that seems like something he wants, that he wants to have a legacy where Jews stop walking around with confidence in the city and believes he can herald that, bring that time into being, and it will long outlive his own tenure.

[Abe Greenwald]

So what you're describing is the goal of terrorism, right? The goal of terrorism as a strategy is to disturb the very ground that people walk on. To make them unsure of what might happen at any given moment, wherever they are. Because they cannot be sure that somebody isn't somewhere going to plant a bomb on a subway or release ricin in a subway, or leave a package in a park or something like that, or a sort of an incendiary device made out of a pressure cooker on 23rd street, whatever that is what terrorism is for. The purpose of terrorism is to spread the feeling of what it's like to be in a bunker in the middle of a war to a civilian population. And so we are at the. And so the person who is stimulating the feeling of being terrorized in New York among Jews is the city's mayor. It's not a Black Panther, you know, it's not a member of the Weather Underground. It's not somebody who is being chased by the FBI for their crimes. It is the elected mayor of New York City. That's why this is new. That's why this is a. We are in uncharted territory. Because why wouldn't you be afraid? And I'll tell you something else. That his police commissioner is Jewish doesn't help. Because this gives Jews a little, you know, a little finger to hang on, right? To hang on the, you know, like off the edge of a building, you know, or like, like Harold Lloyd on the, on the arm of the clock. Because it's like, well, Jesse Tish is there to protect us. No, she isn't. Because whether she released a statement or not, Mamdani can say whatever it is he wants to say. And maybe she's doing more harm than good because she's there koshering him a little bit with people who will wanna give him excuses by saying, she's there, she's a good police commissioner. And she keeps, you know, she has Shabbos lunches and, and, you know, she's a good Zionist and her family are, you know, like, have been important figures in American philanthropy for Jewish people. And so she's just great. And I think she is great. And as I've said before, she was my intern 25 years ago. So I can tell you that based on her as a 20 year old college kid, she was, you know, sensationally good at that. She's very good at this. She should probably quit because she is now she is doing more harm than good because she is giving him cover and he cannot be allowed to have cover. If this is going to go on, he is going to have to take full responsibility or we are going to have to be allowed to assign him full responsibility for whatever is to come. Because this is not an isolated incident. This will not be an isolated incident. Somebody was attacked the day before the stabbings near King's Plaza in Brooklyn. A 64 year old man pushed down to the ground, broke a rib, taken to the hospital. There's a photograph of the guy who pushed him down. He hasn't been caught yet, but I mean, that's the day before. So he wasn't stabbed, but he broke a ribbon. That happened in far Brooklyn, another very Jewish neighborhood near King's Plaza. Here's this on the Upper west side. What's tomorrow? What's today? You know, we can secure. I've used this number before. According to stats, the Jewish community in the United states is spending $750 million a year privately on security to harden and protect Jewish institutions. The cost of protecting Jews in the United States is immeasurable. So you can protect buildings, you can protect schools, you can protect, you can even have, you know, you can even have guards and things like that on blocks, you know, block associations and that sort of thing. But you can't protect everybody. That's actually the job of the mayor. And the mayor is now on the side of the people who want to do Jews harm.

[John Pudhoritz]

And I think that we're getting to the point where, you know, I was thinking this earlier, that Tish is probably on her way out because the time I read the Times story as a kind of go, as the clock starting the clock on Tish leaving the administration. I agree with, I think it was Eliana who said it the other day on the podcast that Mamdani does not want her to go because he, as you said, also he benefits from having this sort of facade. But I saw the NYPD letting the New York Times know that it was trying to put out a statement and that this is how Mamdani commandeered that and hijacked that as a sort of beginning of the end to this. And what you, what you see is Mamdani is diverting the nypd. He is affecting how it does his job. And I think that's the line that ends up being crossed, that he can say things and then Tish can have the NYPD police as she would always. That's not the case anymore. He is changing how the NYPD does, does its job. And that is also, by the way, something people should recognize about the threat in the first place to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. He's not an official of the nypd. He doesn't have a warrant in his pocket with a judge signing off on probable cause. He's just walking around saying, we're going to arrest him. He's going to direct the cops to arrest somebody that there's no investigation over. So this is. People should understand that what he's done is he is commandeering now in. In two different cases, the nypd, for his own purposes. And I don't even know if she's gonna stick. I don't even know if she's gonna stick around for there to be a third.

[Seth Mandel]

What I'd like to see is for her not only to quit, but for her to quit and come at him and say, this is what I saw, this is what I dealt with. This is what he's about, and this is why I could take no part in it and in fact had to sort of speak out about it. And this is what we're dealing with here. New York. I mean, I think that would be somewhat.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, she is perfectly positioned to be the leader of the anti Mamdani resistance. She is the second most famous public official in New York City. It's amazing how now New York, which used to have a bunch of characters and interesting political figures and all of that, various things have happened, including very bad term limit rules and stuff like that, to basically degrade the position of anybody else in the city other than the mayor, so that there are very few independent power centers and people who are, who are of any interest. Tish managed to make her reputation as police commissioners have made it, by the way, before she was a police commissioner because she was sanitation commissioner and became sort of like the person whose job it was to deal with a rat breakout all over the city, partially because of COVID because of the failure to collect garbage in a timely manner during COVID And she succeeded at it. And so she was. The city was already grateful to her before Eric Adams made her the police commissioner. And there she is. And she is a public official and she is famous and she is perfectly positioned to play that role should she choose to play it. I ordinarily would have thought, okay, you know what? It's better that. It's the classic problem that people said about Trump when never Trumpers were, you know, or people in 2017 were looking to staff the administration when people had great misgivings about him. Better to be inside than outside. Better to try to, like, mitigate the damage and sort of help things along as a public servant. And of course, Trump, for a lot of those people, from Jim Mattis onward, made that impossible for them. And so that may be the case here with Jessica Tisch. But the larger point, I think, one other point. Mamdani uses Jews as human shields. Certain Jews, I'm saying implicitly, he uses Tish as a human shield, but he spent Hanukkah night lighting candles with Mandy Patinkin and his wife, Catherine Grody. He has Jewish voice for peace, which isn't Jewish, isn't a voice, and doesn't advocate for peace. As one of his great backers, he has Brad Lander, a Jew, saying he's fine, all of that. So, you know, the worst thing you can say about a Jew, I'm telling gentiles now this in our time, maybe the worst thing you can say about a Jew is that a Jew is a capo. Capo was a position, unofficial, official position in concentration camps. The Jews who were. And in ghettos, the Jews who were assigned by the Nazis some manner of authority over the other Jews in the ghettos or in the camps. These are hated figures, you know, sort of cursed by history. And so calling somebody a capo is like, you know, if I say Peter Beinart is a capo and he wanted to come and, like, you know, deck me, that would be an understandable response to being called a capo. It's like being called. It's a traitor, but you're a traitor to genocide, you know, to a genocider. These people are worse.

[John Pudhoritz]

Peter Beinar personally might take it as a compliment, but, yeah, your point stands.

[Abe Greenwald]

These people are worse than capos because capos were victims also. Capos were in the camps also. Capos could be killed at any moment. Also, Kapos were behaving in ways that they behaved because they were human beings under conditions of moral impossibility and horror that does not allow us really to judge them fully.

[Seth Mandel]

It was a survival choice.

[Abe Greenwald]

It was a survival choice they were given. They didn't take it. I mean, you know, they. And so, you know, Viktor Frankl, in his book Man Search for Meaning, once said that the people who survived the camps, including him, the people who didn't survive the camps were the better, were morally better because he was saying in some implicit way unjustly. But I mean, an interesting moral point that, that the least you could say is that nobody ever did anything to anybody. No Jew who died in the camps could ever be blamed for getting in the way of getting somebody there first or escaping while somebody else took their place on their way to the ovens. So, Mandy and Jewish.

[John Pudhoritz]

Jewish Kapos and Jewish Councils and all these sort of Jewish overseers, they all knew they were going to die. They all knew it. They. This was like, yes, it was survival for a period of time. But you understood that if you were in the group, in the camps that, you know, led Jews to. To the showers, you were. You were too. You knew too much. And they understood that the Nazis saw you as someone who knew to. Anytime there was a Jew who had any sort of contact or cooperation with the authorities, that person, by definition, knew too much and was signing their death warrant. They were delaying it as long as they could in the hopes that maybe the war would be over and the camps would be liberated and then, yes, they would survive. But it was also, we should just note, a death sentence. The Jews who are doing this now seem to be doing just fine. I mean, there's no. They get Mamdani's endorsement for office, and then they get office. There isn't, you know, they aren't signing on to any sort of, you know, something that's detrimental to their career. They aren't signing on to be eaten last by the alligator, as they say. And so I think they are.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, ultimately, yeah, ultimately, I think they are signing up to be eaten last. But my point here is that they are not under conditions of duress. This is a matter of choice. And they have chosen to side with this apologist for and supporter of a view that ultimately says that the Jewish people should cease to exist. That is Hamas's charter. That is Iran's purpose. That is the idea behind the Muslim Brotherhood. That is the notion that Israel should be from the river to the sea, should be Palestine. And so the Jews who are there, Kashuring Mamdani, the 25% of Jews in New York City who voted for him, the people at the Park Slope Food Co Op who have instituted a ban on Israeli products, the vast majority of whom I'm sure voted for Mamdani, they are worse than capos. You cannot call anybody anything worse than a capo. I don't have the term for it yet, but they are worse because it is all elective. Mandy Patinkin should have spat in Mamdani's face. But he brought him into his house to light his candle on a day on a holiday commemorating Jewish resistance to forced conversion and to the removal of all Jewish religious life. In ancient lands. That's what's happening here. And I'm torn between the idea that, you know, we cannot allow him. Mamdani. Them to win. We have not only we have to fight, we have to beat them, and we have to. We can't, like, leave the battlefield. Right. And on the other hand, is there any individual who would say that? A person who looked at what happened yesterday and what's probably gonna happen in the next three or four months, who says, all right, I am going to Florida, like the gentleman who was stabbed, would you say, don't leave. Stay and fight? If I left tomorrow because I was like, I. I don't know, I. I guess my kids should really finish high school, you know, in. In Boca just for, you know, just as an insurance policy, Would that be cowardice or prudence? Would it be a lack of civic duty to save my city from this barbaric evil? Or is it what I need to do to protect my family? So that's where we are. We'll be back next week. For Seth and Abe, I'm John Podhole. Quartz. Keep the candle burning.