A young Jewish organizer takes on Jerry Nadler in a generational challenge
Liam Elkind, co-founder of a pandemic-era nonprofit, runs on generational change, grassroots values and a pro-Israel message
Liam Elkind on July 30. Courtesy of Liam Elkind
By Jacob Kornbluh July 30, 2025
When Jerry Nadler first ran for office in 1976, Gerald Ford was president and a typical rent in New York was $500. Today, Donald Trump is back in the White House, rent in Manhattan can exceed $5,000, and Nadler is running for his 18th term in the House.
That disconnect, said 26-year-old Liam Elkind, is exactly why he’s challenging the longtime Jewish congressman in next year’s Democratic primary.
“We need new leaders with the energy and urgency to meet this moment,” Elkind said in an interview.
Elkind on Monday launched his campaign with a two-minute video reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani’s viral, street-level, direct-to-camera clips that led him to victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
Elkind, who is Jewish, sharply differs in other respects from Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel and supporter of the boycott movement.
A self-described “strong progressive,” Elkind embraces liberal Zionist views — supporting Israel’s security, expressing concern for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and advocating a two-state solution to bring peace to the region. His first choice for mayor was Brad Lander, who is also Jewish with similar views on Israel. Lander cross-endorsed Mamdani. Elkind ranked Mamdani fifth on his ranked-choice ballot.
Elkind and Mamdani share a message of urgency. Like Mamdani, Elkind says a leadership focused on the future would deliver meaningful economic results for the working class. He also supports an outright ban on corporate PAC money.
Also similar to Mamdani is Elkind’s pitch to voters who may disagree with him on policy. “Where people disagree, I want them to have a seat at my table too,” he said. “Because at the end of the day, we are one people.”
Elkind blends a message of generational change with a background in grassroots organizing. During the coronavirus pandemic, he co-founded Invisible Hands, a nonprofit that mobilized over 15,000 volunteers to deliver food and essentials to struggling New Yorkers.
But he’s challenging a seasoned politician who has long been a pillar of Jewish representation in Congress and has weathered tough challenges before. Nadler is now co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus.
In 2022, Nadler won 55% of the vote in what was his toughest reelection bid, facing fellow incumbent Carolyn Maloney in a redrawn Manhattan district and a strong generational challenger, Suraj Patel. He won his 2024 race more comfortably, avoiding a primary and with 80% of the vote in the general election.
“This is the great thing about America, it’s a democracy (hopefully still) and anybody can run,” Rob Gottheim, a spokesperson for Nadler, said in a statement. “And he’ll put his over 30-year record of accomplishments against anyone, including someone who appears to have no record of accomplishment to speak of.”
A backstage crisis and advice from a rabbi
Elkind was born and raised in New York to a Reform Jewish family. Three of his grandparents are from the Bronx and his ancestors came from assorted Eastern European countries where they fled persecution. He went to Hebrew school and celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Central Park West.
In a profile for the Yale Daily News during college, Elkind shared that he couldn’t speak until nearly age 3 and wasn’t accepted into any New York preschools. He struggled with anxiety and once cried backstage when he couldn’t join his kindergarten classmates in singing “This Little Light of Mine” at a concert. As he grew up, he found his voice, eventually performing in a Purim spiel, singing “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz in a Mamma Mia-themed play.
In the interview on Wednesday, Elkind said he developed a passion for community service as a child, and participated in food drives at the Wise Synagogue. He recalled Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch telling him, “Good intentions are desired, but good actions and good outcomes are required.” The phrase, he said, stuck with him.
When Trump first won in 2016, a classmate told Elkind she was excited to get involved in politics. The urgency she saw in Trump’s presidency sparked his own sense of purpose. That moment, he said, was a “light bulb” that inspired him to work toward a more functional and responsive government. His community service work during COVID-19 and the reelection of Trump in 2024 is what led him to run for Congress.
Views on Israel and the Gaza conflict
Elkind said his views on Israel are shaped by personal and historical experience and that his message bridges generational and political divides within the Democratic Party.
Recent polls show that Democratic voters are increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians and are opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza. In a recent Quinnipiac survey, just 12% of Democrats sympathize more with Israelis in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A post-primary survey of 531 voters conducted by Data for Progress found that 78% of respondents agreed with Mamdani’s belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and 79% support restricting weapons to Israel.
Elkind is not one of them. He said he’s a proud Jew who supports Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, especially in the wake of the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, which he called the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
He expressed deep concern for the hunger crisis in Gaza and said he supports a diplomatic solution that includes the dismantlement of Hamas, the release of the hostages, an end to the humanitarian crisis and a two-state solution. Elkind has never visited Israel. He planned to take his first trip in November 2023, but that got canceled due to the war. Nadler has called for the end of the war and blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the collapse of hostage-ceasefire talks.
Elkind acknowledged that many younger Democrats increasingly sympathize with the Palestinian cause and that support for Israel is dangerously close to becoming a partisan issue. Elkind said that rather than taking sides, leaders must create space for empathy on both fronts.
“Suffering and death are horrible. War is hell,” he said. “We can stand with Israel, our democratic ally, and support its right to exist, and also call for humanitarian pauses and the right of all people to be safe and secure. Those two don’t seem in conflict to me.”
Elkind said he finds it “problematic” that Mamdani had dodged calls from Democratic colleagues and Jewish organizations to condemn the use of the “globalize the intifada” slogan. Mamdani said that he would “discourage” the use of that phrase.
“I know a lot of people who have very personal, painful memories of what the intifadas were,” Elkind said. “And I think all of our leaders should be unequivocal in their condemnation of phrases like that.”
He said he ranked Mamdani fifth because of their disagreements. “Where we disagree, I will be unafraid to say so,” Elkind said. “And where we agree, I’ll be delighted to work with him.”
Nadler endorsed Mamdani the day after the primary, a move seen by some allies as an effort to avoid a challenge from the left.
Pitch to Jewish voters
The district Elkind hopes to represent includes the Upper West Side and Upper East Side of Manhattan and has a significant Jewish electorate.
In his last primary challenge, Nadler warned that the Jewish community would lose one of its most prominent voices on Capitol Hill if he were defeated. The message resonated with Jewish voters, who made up about 30% of the Democratic primary electorate, according to a Jewish Community Relations Council analysis by consulting firm Prime New York. Still, that argument was somewhat undercut by the election of another Jewish Democrat, Rep. Dan Goldman, whose Brooklyn-Manhattan district overlaps with parts of Nadler’s former turf.
Elkind is one of those Nadler voters.
In this campaign, his pitch to Jewish voters who, like him, have deep respect for Nadler’s leadership and legacy is this: thank Nadler for his decades of service, but it’s time for a new generation of Jewish leaders to carry the torch forward.
“Antisemitism is on the rise in our city and in our country,” Elkind said. “That is especially dangerous for young Jewish people and also for Jews throughout the city. And we need leaders who can be outspoken and energetic and show the world who we are as Jews and that we are deeply good people committed to making the world a better place.”
Clarification: The language in this story has been adjusted to clarify that the rent prices in New York over time are ballpark figures, not statistical averages.
