At a recent meeting of Queens Jewish community activists, the conversation focused on Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral primary victory last month, how many votes it would take to defeat him in the November general election, and overcoming the reluctance of many Orthodox Jews to register as Democrats.
“They have a problem associated with the Democratic Party,” said David Mordukhaev of the Alliance of Bukharian Americans. “Convincing that group of people is more challenging.”
In his experience registering Bukharian Jewish voters, the older generation associates party membership with their experience in the Soviet Union, where the ruling Communist Party expected loyalty and commitment from its members. Younger voters note the Trump administration’s support for Israel, crackdown on campus anti-Semitism, and social conservatism as reasons to register with the Republican Party.
These would-be voters do not understand that in this country, party membership does not require any commitment from members – ideological, financial, or political. Last week, Councilman Jim Gennaro, whose district covers Kew Gardens Hills, Hillcrest, Fresh Meadows, and Jamaica Estates, offered his support in the general election to incumbent Eric Adams, who is running as an independent.
“Serving as a City Council Member in City Hall with Mayor Adams has NOT been easy: He and I disagree about many issues, and I believe he’s made a lot of mistakes, but he’s infinitely better than Mamdani, in my opinion,” Gennaro wrote on his Facebook profile.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, whose district includes northeast Queens, recognized the 33-year-old Astoria Assemblyman’s successful campaign and recognition of voters’ economic concerns – but not his solution. “Mr. Mamdani’s campaign made lofty, utopian promises: free public transit, free college tuition, more public housing, sweeping debt cancellation, and massive overhauls of systems far beyond his authority – all paid for by huge tax increases,” he wrote in an opinion piece last week in The Wall Street Journal. “The last thing New York and other blue jurisdictions need is higher taxes. People are already fleeing cities and states with sky-high taxes.”
His colleague Rep. Laura Gillen, who represents most communities within the Town of Hempstead, also dismissed Mamdani’s tax hike proposals, calling him the “wrong choice for New York.”
“Mr. Mamdani has called to defund the police and has demonstrated a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable anti-Semitic comments that stoke hate at a time when anti-Semitism is skyrocketing. He is the absolute wrong choice for New York,” she said in a statement. In an interview with Time Magazine, Gillen added that Mamdani’s 12-point primary win against former governor Andrew Cuomo is “hardly a mandate,” as fewer than a third of the city’s registered Democrats showed up to vote.
For their refusal to support Mamdani, these elected officials have received an avalanche of negative feedback on social media, yet they remain members of their respective Democratic conferences – in the city, state, and federal legislatures. Membership in a party for political candidates and elected officials usually comes with expectations from the public.
The popular perception is that Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative – that one party believes in a bigger role for government in society while the other believes in privatization of public services. There are also expectations for the parties to differ on gender identity, environmental regulations, immigration, and foreign policy. In reality, both parties function as “big tents” that allow for a spectrum of views on any given topic, with a high tolerance for dissent. Rather than party leaders, voters enrolled to vote in primaries determine whether a lawmaker deserves another term in office.
In New York, the Democratic Party holds an overwhelming majority in both city and state legislatures – and among registered voters. This is why Orthodox Jewish leaders across the city, from Far Rockaway to Willowbrook, Brooklyn to the Bronx, and everywhere in between, are urging their neighbors to register as Democratic voters.
Their efforts involve educating their communities on the points mentioned here. Unlike a synagogue or social club, a political party does not collect dues, nor does it require attendance at party functions. There is no ideological test or obligation to vote for its candidates. But the act of voting – which is secret and free of charge – impacts everything else that contributes to the cost of daily life.
In the coming weeks, there will be more stories and opinion columns relating to voting, as this country prepares for what may be its most consequential mayoral election.
By Sergey Kadinsky
