{"id":90158,"date":"2025-10-26T08:24:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T13:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=90158"},"modified":"2025-10-26T08:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T13:32:11","slug":"as-1000-rabbis-sign-anti-mamdani-letter-others-decry-mounting-red-lines-in-jewish-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/as-1000-rabbis-sign-anti-mamdani-letter-others-decry-mounting-red-lines-in-jewish-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"As 1000+ rabbis sign anti-Mamdani letter, others decry mounting \u2018red lines\u2019 in Jewish communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JOSEPH STRAUSS<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Two days after Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove delivered a sermon urging congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani, rabbis across the country were asked to sign a letter quoting him.<\/p>\n

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Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By the time it was published Wednesday, 650 rabbis and cantors had done so, adding their names calling out the \u201cpolitical normalization\u201d of anti-Zionism among figures like Mamdani, the New York City mayoral frontrunner.<\/p>\n

By Friday, the letter had more than 1,000 signatories, making it one of the most-signed rabbinic letters in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

But Cosgrove, the senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, was not one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a policy, I do not sign group letters,\u201d he said in an interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy fear of such letters is they can flatten subjects and reduce complex issues to \u2018Who\u2019s on a letter and who\u2019s not on a letter?\u2019\u201d he added. \u201cThere are other platforms that rabbis can give expression to their leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the letter has ricocheted across the country and escaped from rabbis\u2019 inboxes to their congregants\u2019 social media feeds, it has ignited a wave of scrutiny, plaudits and recriminations. Some people have voiced relief or disappointment in seeing their rabbi\u2019s name on the list \u2014 or on not seeing it. <\/p>\n

\u201cJewish communities are circulating spreadsheets of who signed and who didn\u2019t,\u201d wrote Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein in an essay describing what she said was \u201ca painful public reckoning\u201d taking place both publicly and privately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sleeping. These red lines are so dangerous,\u201d responded Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Hermann, of Manhattan\u2019s Society for the Advancement of Judaism, in one of dozens of comments representing a wide range of views. Hermann devoted her Yom Kippur sermon earlier this month to calling on her community to \u201cbecome an antidote to the polarization and fragmentation in our broader Jewish community and society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, facing renewed pressure from their congregants over the letter, some New York City rabbis are articulating alternative strategies for responding to a political moment that many Jews are experiencing as fraught and high-stakes.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl wrote to all members of Central Synagogue, the Manhattan Reform congregation where she is senior rabbi, to explain why they would not find her among the letter\u2019s signatories.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Central clergy team, we have spoken from the pulpit in multiple past sermons and will continue to take a clear, unambiguous position on antisemitism, on anti-Zionist rhetoric, and on sharing our deep support for Israel,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

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(Screenshot; JTA illustration)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But, citing the importance of \u201cseparation of church and state,\u201d Buchdahl wrote that \u201cit is up to each of us to vote our conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are political organizations, including Jewish ones, where electoral politics is the core mission. Get involved,\u201d she wrote. \u201cCentral Synagogue, however, is a Jewish spiritual home and we want to keep it that way. It remains our conviction that political endorsements of candidates are not in the best interest of our congregation, community, or country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side sent out a letter of his own to congregants. He said he would not be voting for Mamdani but did not believe it was his role to tell them how to vote. And he raised concerns about what he said was the \u201cshearing off of liberal from conservative liberal communities,\u201d saying that Jews of all political outlooks should be able to pray and act together. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Torah commands lo titgodedu, traditionally interpreted to mean, don\u2019t fragment yourselves into factions,\u201d Kalmanofsky wrote. \u201cI fear this happening to Jews. Frankly, I fear it more than I fear an anti-Zionist mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabbi Adam Mintz, who leads the recently rebranded Modern Orthodox congregation Shtiebel @ JCC, said he\u2019d signed a smaller letter from Manhattan Orthodox rabbis urging the importance of voting. But Mintz felt this letter was outside his role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a rabbi. I don\u2019t want to take a political stand,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand that some people feel strongly and they want to take a political stand. I think that\u2019s OK, but that\u2019s not my role.\u201d<\/p>\n

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