On November 4th, New Yorkers went to the polls and elected a far-left socialist mayor who is also openly and radically anti-Israel. Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani won with roughly 60% of the city’s vote, including about one-third of the Jewish vote.

This is a man who, on October 8th, condemned Israel just one day after it suffered one of the most horrific attacks in its history. He has repeatedly labeled Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” and has actively promoted efforts to boycott and delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. His past includes endorsing slogans such as “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free”. Even in debates leading up to election day, while claiming to oppose antisemitism, he continued to call the Gaza conflict a genocide and refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

That a sizable minority of Jews voted for him reflects a profound and painful disconnect between many Diaspora affiliated Jews and the State of Israel.

Yet, as with Sadiq Khan’s election as London’s mayor in 2016, the rise of a socialist Muslim to lead a major Western metropolis should not surprise us. It is a sign of the times.

The fires consuming the Jewish world did not begin on October 7th. Long before, the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood had been eroding. A century ago, the Jewish people were granted international recognition of their national home through the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Yet today, the Jewish claim to indigenous rights has never been weaker.
Fueled by a bottomless well of Qatari and Gulf money, Western universities and media have ceased to be arenas for open debate and have become ideological battlegrounds dedicated to delegitimizing the Jewish state.

The Arab and Muslim world could not destroy Israel on the battlefield but what they failed to achieve through war, they are now achieving through soft power.

The target is the West, and its weakness.

The West of today is not the West that once supported Jewish self-determination. It has become an increasingly atheistic, self-loathing, anti-nationalist, postmodern civilization, whose liberal elites often find common cause with Islamist fundamentalists. Declining birth rates and dependence on mass immigration, much of it from Muslim-majority countries, have transformed its cultural landscape. While many first-generation immigrants remain grateful to their host nations, their children often embrace radical ideologies, sometimes even joining extremist movements or championing anti-Israel causes.

It is no surprise, then, that Europe’s native cultures are fading.
In North America, too, demographic and ideological shifts are accelerating. Now steeped in third-wave feminism, gender ideology, and a culture that glorifies deconstruction over tradition, its societies has increasingly turned away from the family unit that sustained Western civilization for millennia. While the ideals of equality and self-expression are noble, their unchecked extremes have led to a civilization unwilling to reproduce itself, and in its place, one that invites and empowers those who still hold fast to traditional values, often found within Muslim immigrant communities.

Not all Westerners embrace this new liberalism. Large Pockets of Evangelical Christians and conservatives still resist. Sometimes, when they unite, they score victories, such as with the election of current US President Donald Trump. Yet in many cases, they increasingly lack the strength, confidence, and unity to withstand the cultural tide. What results is a silent majority simmering with confusion, fertile ground for the oldest hatred of all: antisemitism.

And indeed, antisemitism is now surging across the Western world and its Jewish communities at record levels: in the United States, Canada, England, France, Australia, and beyond.

Nature abhors a vacuum.
Combine Gulf money with Western decay, and the rise of a politician like Zohran Mamdani becomes not an anomaly but an inevitability.

For most of the past century, North America and Britain served as safe havens for Jews. Those gates are now slowly closing. I sensed these undercurrents during the Second Intifada years, even afterwards as a student in Toronto, before making Aliyah to Israel. What was once a whisper of discomfort has now become the mainstream.

Constant reminders of its presence persist in headlines. Only in the last week, a Toronto synagogue was attacked for a 10th time. While it is still possible for a Jew living away from the Jewish community who is not openly Zionist to live in the West in peace, the sense of security is not what it once was.

So what is the answer?
Israel was created as the homeland of the Jewish people, not only by Zionists but by the consensus of the international community. Our connection to this land spans 3,300 years of history, faith, culture, and unbroken presence. A century ago, the West understood this truth because it was more religious, more rooted in the Bible, the very text that enshrines the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.

The election of Zohran Mamdani is not, in itself, purely negative. It is a warning sign, a reflection of the times. Despite his radical anti-Israel stance, his victory may yet force Americans to confront their demons and rediscover what true national cohesion looks like, something that was patriotically present until relatively recently.

Which America should move forward? The America founded in 1776 as a bold reaction to tyranny – a shining city on a hill built on free enterprise, the pursuit of happiness, and the sanctity of human liberty? Or an America redefined by wokeness, anti-Zionism, and an ideology intent on dismantling the very foundations that made it great in the name of a new moral order?

Two million New Yorkers will not suddenly move to Israel. But this moment could spark a period of Jewish self-reflection, as pro-Palestinian activism becomes ever more mainstream.

And perhaps that is what we need most – self-reflection.
A hundred years after the world gave us a mandate to build our national home, we have lost the plot. The time has come to reclaim it.

Born in Israel but raised in Canada, Gil Lewinsky worked as a journalist in Jewish newspapers including the Jerusalem Post after completing a Masters degree at the Munk School of Global Affairs from the University of Toronto. He also has a LLM in International Law from Lancaster University in the UK. His past topics include a book written about the Status of Gaza under International Law soon after its conquest by Hamas in 2007. He is perhaps best known as one of two people that brought a flock of Jacob Sheep from Canada to Israel in 2016, making history. He currently works as a teacher and English public relations professional in Israel.