“Mamdani slammed for ‘corrupting history’ about the creation of Israel in social media post marking ‘Nakba Day’” (New York Post):
The “Nakba” could equally be remembered as the anniversary of the united Arab professional militaries invading the new UN-created State of Israel with the stated intention of driving all of the civilian Jews into the sea. Arabs living in the area allocated to the Jews were urged by their invading brothers to get out of the way so that the Jews could be defeated without collateral harm to Muslims. Those Arabs who moved eventually began to identify as “Palestinians”. Those who stayed became Arab citizens of Israel (about 2.1 million people today, including their descendants). From an anti-Jewish point of view, of course, the Nakba refers to a forced displacement similar to what ethnic Germans suffered in Central Europe after World War 11 or what Hindus and Pakistanis suffered when India was partitioned. From a purely historical perspective, the term was was used August 1948 by Syrian Constantin Zureiq in his book Ma’na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster). The “Nakba” was the Arabs’ failure to win the war that they’d started, an incredible display of incompetence given that civilians aren’t supposed to be a match for even one nation’s regular military, much less five (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon; Saudi Arabia and Yemen also sent troops) and that Arabs outnumbered Jews in the region by at least 150:1 (today that’s closer to 70;1).
Who’s funding Ayatollah Mamdani to promote the anti-Jewish side of the events of 1948? Thousands of high-income Jews! They could leave center-of-Jew-hate New York City and move to Palm Beach County, Florida, the world’s largest investor in Israel bonds. It’s a 2.5-hour JetBlue flight or an easy Tesla self-drive down I-95, but they won’t do it.
If high-income Jews moved out of NYC, they’d quickly be replaced by migrants, of course, just as any American can and will be easily replaced, but the tax base might shrink to the point that Mayor Mamdani would have to focus on administering local government rather than on highlighting Israel’s misdeeds.
Why has pouring out anti-Israel points of view been a political winner for Democrats? Victor Davis Hanson explains in “The Four Horsemen of the New Antisemitism”:
in demographic terms, the US Muslim population is expanding exponentially, due almost entirely to recent immigration and higher birth rates than the American norm (e.g., 2.5–8 versus 1.6–1.7).
There are now nearly five million Muslim Americans. These numbers are anticipated by 2030 to surpass the Jewish American population.
An entire generation of young American elites has been groomed in universities to despise Israel and, by extension, to express hostility toward Jews. After October 7, the scab was torn away, revealing what had festered underneath for years.
The DEI binary fuels both anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animus. In this Marxist moral schema, the world abroad—and within the United States—is divided into “white oppressors” and “nonwhite victims,” despite the fact that people commonly classified as white comprise only a small minority of the global population.
Thus, Jews in America found themselves classified among the whitest and most privileged of the oppressor class, perhaps by virtue of their material success, while Israel abroad was deemed a white colonialist settler state because it repeatedly defeated neighboring enemies.
For figures like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, or Chuck Schumer to forcefully challenge hatred of Israel—and, by extension, of the Jews—would now be treated as political heresy, a career-ending death wish. Defending Israel and calling out antisemitism became as unfashionable in progressive circles as praising secure borders, deportations, or fossil fuels and pipelines
what is left in the pathway of demonizing Israel and blaming Jews, here and abroad, is the supposed bigot Donald Trump and his “irredeemable,” “deplorable” MAGA movement—for now, the last dam holding back the rising flood.
The above might not be 100% correct/complete, but it is certainly bizarre that Jewish Americans support Democrats with both votes and tax dollars.
Victor Davis Hanson (sp)….lose the “C.” The airport isn’t named after him.
Fixed. Thanks!
there still seems to be a spelling problem with David vs. Davis.
Fixed. If he’s writing about Jews his name should be “David”!
Your piece is missing a couple very significant facts that help explain what is going on in New York and other metro areas, mainly on the coasts:
1) Many Jews are leftists/communists, so Mamdani is actually someone they love and voted for. An astonishing 33% of NYC Jews voted for him (as per Grok).
2) Many Jews hate America because they are leftists/communists (Grok says 45-60% of Jews in America are leftists).
3) Many Jews hate Donald Trump (they honestly believe he is a Fascist and Nazi), so they are inherently in favor of anything/anyone who impedes his agenda (and this extends to even to supporting Hamas because Trump and Bibi are trying to erase them).
These people love funding Mamdani and his ilk in New York and would never leave.
@Mamdani lovers, I think it is fair to estimate that majority of Mamdani supporters are on debit side of NYC balance sheet. Better off Jewish high tax payers (all 50000 of them) , 60% of whom are probably conservative anyway could leave NYC for Miami, Pam Beach or Boca Raton without tipping the voting balance negatively in Florida. This would have no impact on Jewish life in NYC as those Apollo etc Jews work on Sabbath anyway. For fun they can keep financing non-profit Jewish institutions including neighborhood self defense groups in New York City, it is a tax write-off.
“…but it is certainly bizarre that Jewish Americans support Democrats with both votes and tax dollars.”
For the reasons noted above by Jews Love Mamdani, it’s not that surprising…and a perfect example is Bernie Sanders, a Jew who hails from Brooklyn, NY. He checks all three of the boxes noted above, plus one more:
4) He is actively campaigning for a Nazi sympathizer (Graham Platner)!
Sad but true. Hard to explain ongoing self-destruction of the west without reading Hebrew Bible and later prophets. Even though it conflicts with modern #science: no cloth face masks in Hebrew Bible.
Being Jewish is a full time job. One cannot be jewish & talk about the SpaceX IPO or the internals of fopen. Yuval Gonen is a world class hottie though.
@lion, you are mostly right. I knew religious Jewish developers who switched profession because speeding-up technology update cycle technical debt service mad their observance too hard for them. But there are notable exception, see Robert Aumann and others, who are more private. They can mange their time even better the generous host of this blog.
> just as any American can and will be easily replaced
Except maybe for the POTUS, CEOs, and university presidents? Maybe it’s because people who are qualified don’t want to put up with the B.S., aren’t megalomaniacs, or can’t establish a cult of personality. Michigan State lost a president; they couldn’t keep him even with a $2M compensation package.
It’s disappointing that Jews keep becoming a victim to their own success. Their rivals might adopt the positive traits responsible, instead persecuting them out of jealosy. It would be sad to imagine NYC without a strong Jewish community, part of what made it such a special place.
I don’t know about how you think about replacement in the concrete. But it’s the American spirit which needs to live, and that’s what’s important. If that is replaced then there wouldn’t be any point of America, it will become like other countries, with their half-baked “cultures”, which become great only when they move out of their country.
“American Spirit”, always imperfectly implemented, to me has been the idea of cultural and religious freedom, working together despite our differences. The idea of one religion or culture extinguishing that ideal is reprehensible. They can leave that shit where they came from, for sure. I hate to drop the “D” word, but diversity is actually desirable — look at how nature works. But then, we know DEI isn’t really about diversity, equity, or inclusion — is it? — just some wack Newspeak. We need Darwin and we get Marx.
In modern times, culture and religion have been hollowed out and distorted so much that we get these polarizing “identity politics”, that really are just harmful caricatures and meaningless abstractions, not really “culture” at all. People really have to get back to connecting to each other personally, rather than symbolically through social media (now cooking with AI gas). I guess if there is a “replacement” going on that would be it. Stepford Wife culture which opportunists seize on while no one is paying attention.
A lot of stuff I don’t properly understand in your post.
> I hate to drop the “D” word, but diversity is actually desirable — look at how nature works.
Diversity of what? From what I understand America is about diversity of ideas and the general assumption is that diversity of population => diversity of ideas. And if a population sucks up to power, it leads to less diversity of ideas on an average, increases the denominator that is.
> Stepford Wife culture which opportunists seize on while no one is paying attention.
From what I understand after using Gemini, you’re saying that people who are more docile by nature are seized upon as followers. Right?
> polarizing “identity politics”, that really are just harmful caricatures and meaningless abstractions, not really “culture” at all
I don’t follow.
> I understand America is about diversity of ideas and the general assumption is that diversity of population => diversity of ideas.
The diversity of a population is in their genetic, cultural, and religious diversity — all of which contribute strength and health of our nation. I know fanatics want monoculture in everything, but it just isn’t God’s or Nature’s way. (Yes, Phil fans, I know letting in hordes of immigrants chanting “Death to America” isn’t healthy. It isn’t a positive trend to intentionally overwhelm people that believe in freedom with waves of people who don’t.) America has protections built into the Constitution which are supposed to protect that. Formerly, the U.S. didn’t highly Balkanize when people of significantly different cultures had to find a way to live together. Now it’s a different story, and we are going to have to find our way back from this polarization we are experiencing. The all or nothing rhetoric ain’t getting us there.
The National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie case is relevant here. Look at how the ACLU has transformed from “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” to “woke good, MAGA bad”. (Although, even then, opposition is always healthy, if one’s ideas can’t withstand criticism maybe they aren’t that good.)
> From what I understand after using Gemini, you’re saying that people who are more docile by nature are seized upon as followers. Right?
Gemini doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of understanding me, my superpower. (The world is going to need me when it learns it has to shut AI down.)
> polarizing “identity politics”, that really are just harmful caricatures and meaningless abstractions, not really “culture” at all
For example, “Black” [sic] isn’t a culture. It is a construction, an amalgamation of a number of different African subcultures and their derivatives. Much like 4LGBQWERTY+ or MAGA. Of course, all cultures are in some sense “constructed”. These are politically motivated rather than
organic and belief-expressing. Interestingly, America has an emergent culture of Individualism, which it has been strongly criticized for by more socialist people. (By the way, The Stepford Wives was one hella creepy, future-predicting movie.)
I’m not sure if this helps, PhilG Fan, but there it is — an explanation of why it would be sad and harmful to lose the ancient Jewish culture in NYC.
NH, yeah man it does, thanks. I haven’t read any fiction novels for a long time so I find it difficult to understand your English.
As far as cultures go, I just have observed two main classifications: Nature based and prophet based.
Nature based cultures form looser groups than prophet based ones and tend to get proselytized if not careful. When proselytized they have some mixture of ideas from the two belief systems, like I felt in a few Iranians I came across.
@PGF
Interesting that someone noticed everything I write is fiction, like politicians. 🙂 I try to write my blog comments at the post-doc level, even on Reddit.
LOL! Post-docs have made some deep cuts on your truly that need to be reciprocated, for fairness. At some point one needs to do a post-doc on a post-docs. The best way to understand is to create.
In fact, the Jewish population of Florida, basically the strip between PBC and Miami, is approaching that of NYC – FL.’s Jewish population is now about 20% lower than NYC’s & that that will probably reverse over the next decade. This was covered in an article in Mosaic about 4 years ago. It is hard to know who is a Jew since lots of people identify as Jews who aren’t (go figure), the true status being defined by the religion of the mother & her mother, etc. Most likely a substantial percentage of the “Jews” who voted for Mamdani are not in fact Jews under accepted standards. Many others are like Bernie Sanders the end of a Jewish lineage since they have no Jewish children & are essentially irrelevant to Judaism. Most likely the future of Judaism will be in Israel, not Florida or NYC, because Israel is now the world’s most vibrant & creative Jewish community.
Embracing Pride Month and transgender rights [1] is a good start for Mamdani to expand his base of supporters and followers. But he can go even further, by also align himself with groups such as Queers for Palestine.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/mamdani-embraces-trans-rights-for-pride-month-as-democrats-cave-to-backlash-12023151