New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is no stranger to criticism that he has, at the very least, antisemitic leanings. Hizzoner caught more flak from across the board, including from his fellow Democrats, when he called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) “monsters” at a rally last week to support candidates in New York’s primary on Tuesday.
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Mediaite reports that Mamdani made the remarks in Brooklyn for a slate of candidates for the Democratic Socialist Party, known for its anti-Israel stance.
These monsters take many forms today: in those who fund television ads that blanket the airwaves with misleading and bad-faith attacks about Claire, Brad, and Dari; those who would rather spend far more on political contributions than they would ever be made to pay in taxes; in AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to the genocide in Netanyahu’s wars
They move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal: to preserve their power, so that they can turn us against one another instead of turning our leaders toward the moral change we all know to be necessary. In a politics that for too long has asked working people to lower their expectations, to settle for less, to become satisfied with small victories while our wages grow even smaller and our costs grow even larger; to resign ourselves to resignation, to accept the unacceptable. In the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we need not live in fear of monsters any longer.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., shared video of the remarks, saying, “Swap ‘AIPAC’ for ‘Jews’ and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books. That’s not criticizing a lobby.”
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“Monsters.” “Dark money.” A hidden hand “turning us against one another.”
Swap “AIPAC” for “Jews” and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books. That’s not criticizing a lobby. That’s laundering antisemitism from your podium as Mayor of a city with more than a… https://t.co/KOJ2HaImFE
— Rep Josh Gottheimer (@RepJoshG) June 21, 2026
Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, also a Democrat, chimed in:
#gapol. Mamdani is an antisemite b/c he believes that Israel has no right to exist as the Jewish state and no right to defend herself from attacks. He is dangerous to Jews and his followers who parrot these anti AIPAC (aka Jews) messages are dangerous to Jews. https://t.co/RbGBAn4LVq
— Rep. Esther Panitch (@epanitch) June 21, 2026
The Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt commented:
It’s been three days since Mayor Mamdani took the stage to demonize and denigrate his Jewish constituents. I initially didn’t say anything because I felt certain he would retract his incendiary comments or at least explain them.
I was wrong.
This is the kind of bigoted… https://t.co/c9P1QyJyU3
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— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 21, 2026