Prominent NYC rabbi urges congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani in Shabbat sermon

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove delivers his Shabbat sermon on Oct. 18, 2025. Screenshot of Park Avenue Synagogue from YouTube

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(JTA) — This piece first ran as part of The Countdown, JTA’s daily newsletter rounding up all the developments in the New York City mayor’s race. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. There are 15 days to the election.

🗣 Rabbis speak out

• Two leading New York rabbis are using their pulpits to condemn Zohran Mamdani as he holds onto a commanding lead in the last weeks of the race.
• Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, who heads the Conservative Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, decried the frontrunner in a speech to his congregation on Shabbat. “I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community,” he said, citing Mamdani’s views of Israel and Zionism.
• Cosgrove also urged his congregants to convince their Jewish friends and family to vote against Mamdani. He said Jewish New Yorkers should “prioritize their Jewish selves” by voting based on their connection to Israel, rather than local issues such as affordability.
• “As Jews, ahavat Israel — love of Israel — does take precedence over other loves,” said Cosgrove.
• Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, who leads the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side, addressed Mamdani in his own video that was shared with his congregation days earlier.
• Hirsch said Mamdani’s “ideological commitments” against Israel served to “delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility towards Judaism and Jews.” He told Mamdani, “I urge you to reconsider your long-held views of Israel’s right to exist.”
• Hirsch also said, “Most Jews are deeply offended by your ongoing accusations of Israeli genocide.” Four in 10 American Jews said they believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, according to a Washington Post poll conducted in early September.
• A Fox News survey last week found that Jews were closely split between Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo, who is polling a distant second in the race.
• Other New York rabbis have been plagued by the question of whether to endorse in this election, since the IRS reversed a decades-long policy that barred endorsements from the pulpit. Hirsch previously told our reporter Grace Gilson that he was alarmed by Mamdani but would not make an endorsement, warning fellow clergy that “it diminishes us if we are perceived as being in a partisan camp.”

📣 Sliwa called on to quit

• Curtis Sliwa faced calls to quit the race during a meeting at Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Sunday, where our reporter Joseph Strauss saw attendees pleading with the Republican nominee who is polling third. The day before, on Shabbat, he visited The Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side. Later in the day, he headed to Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, where Mamdani spoke last week.
• The Fifth Avenue Synagogue crowd was not unanimously anti-Sliwa, but they convened with the purpose of stopping Mamdani’s rise. One person accused Sliwa of being a “spoiler.”
• “We all love you, we want you to win,” said synagogue president Jacob Gold, who stood by Sliwa at the podium. “But you’re at 15%, and Cuomo’s at what percent? And Mamdani’s at what percent?” Gold said that he wanted Sliwa to “merge with Cuomo.”
• Cuomo himself urged Sliwa to drop out after the first general election debate on Thursday, during which he fielded barbs from both Sliwa and Mamdani.
• “There is no Curtis as a candidate. There’s Curtis as a spoiler,” Cuomo said to conservative Jewish radio host Sid Rosenberg on Friday. “If Curtis is not in the race, I win. And that’s a choice for Republicans. Do you vote for Curtis so you can say ‘I voted Republican’ and wind up electing Mamdani? Or do you vote for me?”
• Sliwa responded to his detractors, including Jewish billionaire Bill Ackman, in an interview with Jewish YouTuber Nate Friedman. He called Ackman a “jerk” who did not understand politics or live in New York City. To Cuomo, he said, “Get your own votes.”

🎂 Mamdani turns 34

• Mamdani celebrated his birthday on Saturday, taking the chance to address voters who express concerns about his age.
• “You’re worried about a 33-year-old becoming mayor of New York City,” he said in a video. “And I want you to know, I hear you. That’s why this weekend I’ll be making a change. I’m turning 34, and I’m committing that for every single day from here on out, I will grow older.”
• Mamdani asked supporters to mark his birthday by signing up for a canvassing shift. “The best gift is to beat Andrew Cuomo a second time,” he said.

👀 Trump watch

• President Trump continues to muse about the race. But after saying that Mamdani “hates Jewish people” and reiterating his threats to cut federal funding from New York under a Mayor Mamdani last week, he suggested over the weekend that the election result wouldn’t make much difference to him.
• “Would I rather have a Democrat than a communist? Barely. They’re almost becoming the same thing,” Trump said on Fox News on Sunday morning. “I don’t know that I’m going to get involved.”