Major Jewish Groups Boycott Mamdani Event After Nakba Video Backlash

Major New York Jewish organizations skipped Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Jewish Heritage Month gathering at Gracie Mansion on Monday evening after he posted a city-produced Nakba Day video on official social media channels.

UJA-Federation of New York and Jewish Community Relations Council-New York, two of the city’s leading Jewish organizations, did not attend the pre-Shavuot event, in a boycott first reported by the New York Post. The decision exposed a widening rupture between Mamdani and mainstream pro-Israel Jewish institutions in a city with nearly 1 million Jewish residents.

The backlash centered on a taxpayer-produced video marking Nakba Day, which commemorates the Palestinian displacement surrounding Israel’s founding. Jewish leaders and critics said the video presented the Palestinian narrative while omitting the UN partition plan, Arab rejection of that plan, the war launched against the newly declared State of Israel, attacks on Jewish communities during the 1948 war, and the flight or expulsion of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries.

UJA-Federation said its decision not to attend was tied to Mamdani’s broader position on Israel. “UJA-Federation of New York will not attend tonight’s Jewish American Heritage Month event at Gracie Mansion being hosted by a mayor who denies a central pillar of our heritage — the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” the group said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

Mamdani has previously supported divestment from Israel Bonds, refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and said he would not attend the Israel Day Parade.

JCRC-NY CEO Mark Treyger said the video came amid a broader failure by City Hall to respond forcefully to pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah demonstrations outside synagogues and through Jewish neighborhoods.

“That was certainly a choice that he made, and it certainly did not advance understanding. What it did is inflame tensions that were already inflamed,” Treyger told Jewish Insider. “We are just not receiving the type of leadership that New Yorkers deserve at this moment to lower the temperature, to bring people together, and to affirm that this is a City Hall that wants to be there for all New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers,” he added.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis also did not attend. “Jewish history didn’t end in 1946,” he said, arguing that Jewish heritage must include recognition of the State of Israel.

Mamdani defended the video at an unrelated press conference Monday and did not back away from the decision to post it.

“I firmly believe that acknowledging any one people’s pain does not preclude you from the acknowledgment of another people’s,” Mamdani said. He also said, “My message to Jewish leaders across the city is that my door is always open.”

The event went ahead, but reportedly in a smaller format than usual. The reception was moved indoors, drew about 150 people, had no music, and lacked many prominent Jewish communal and political figures who typically attend such gatherings.