Terry Newman: Mamdani's 'warmth of collectivism' doesn't include Jews or 9/11 victims

New York City’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, rang in the New Year and his term at city hall by saying in his inauguration speech that his administration will “draw this city closer together” and “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” But “rugged individualism” is the characteristic trait of Americans, especially New Yorkers. It’s this nature of individualism that makes the United States the most innovative country in the world.

The very individualistic people of New York are by no means frigid or lacking in warmth for their fellow citizens. New Yorkers regularly support each other in times of crisis. During the COVID pandemic, residents cheered frontline workers from their balconies. Ordinary citizens became heroes pulling together aid to help their neighbours any way they could.

Likewise, during hurricane Sandy, the city’s residents came together in solidarity to support those affected by flooding and power outages caused by the severe storm. But perhaps the most obvious sign that New Yorkers do not need lessons in solidarity from Mamdani is the great collective efforts its residents displayed in the aftermath of the horrific terror attack on 9/11.

Medical professionals, police officers, pastors, clergy and church groups sprang into action. Volunteers rushed to the area where the Twin Towers used to stand, to help emergency response workers, some later choosing to become volunteers themselves. Firefighters who searched through the rubble risked, and in some cases later succumbed to, lung diseases caused by the debris they breathed in.

This year, on the attack’s 24th anniversary, New York volunteers continued to show their collective warmth by preparing millions of meals for their fellow residents.

If Mamdani’s blatantly false comments suggesting that New Yorkers needed a lesson in warmth from his administration weren’t insulting enough, his actions have made it clear that his idea of collective warmth has limits and do not extend to the loved ones of 9/11 victims or Jews.

Of all the people Mamdani could choose as his legal counsel, he picked Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who defended al-Qaida terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court. While al-Darbi did not participate in the 9/11 attacks, he was convicted in connection with the attack on a French oil tanker in 2002, and was part of the same terrorist network that made no secret of its hatred for America.

To call this move tone-deaf is an understatement. There’s no way that Mamdani is unaware of how it looks to those who lost loved ones or volunteered on 9/11.

If his history of defending an al-Qaida member wasn’t troubling enough, Kassem, who’s now 47, penned anti-Israel articles for his campus newspaper when he was a student. He also represented Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by immigration authorities for his anti-Israel activities at Columbia University.

Kassem can also be seen in a video advising pro-Hamas protesters on a video conference titled, “Emergency Session: A Survival Guide to Arrests and Jail Support.” In the video, he counsels the students to think carefully with “fellow organizers and fellow protesters” about their “individual risk factors,” when it comes to the “consequences of arrest.”

He advised them that riskier roles, where they are more likely to get arrested, should be filled by “U.S citizens, as opposed to green-card holders or visa-card holders or brothers and sisters who may be undocumented.” Everyone has a right to a legal defence, but Kassem is counselling students about who should commit the most serious crimes in order to avoid the most severe consequences.

Not only are Kassem’s interests niche, they raise serious questions about his ability to provide legal counsel to Mamdani that serves the best interests of all New Yorkers.

There are other signs Mamdani is not interested in a warm, fuzzy collective of New Yorkers living in solidarity with Jews. On Day 1, he revoked the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Even more troubling, not 24 hours after being sworn in as mayor of the city that boasts the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel, Mamdani began scrubbing social media posts that acknowledged rising antisemitism and the city’s commitment to address it from the mayor’s official X account, in a move that may be illegal, as the posts are considered part of the public record.

One of the now-deleted posts discussed the creation of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism “to make fighting hate a policy priority.”

Another now-scrubbed post once read: “New York City isn’t just talking about the rise in antisemitism — we’ve taken action. Today, we released the first-ever municipal report on our efforts to combat antisemitism. It’s bold. It’s detailed. It’s a blueprint for 2026.”

The removal of these posts caused the National Jewish Advocacy Centre to write Mamdani a letter expressing alarm: “It is difficult to overstate how disturbing it is that one of your very first acts as mayor of New York City, on your very first day in office, was to delete official @NYCMayor tweets addressing the protection of Jewish New Yorkers.…

“At a moment of unprecedented antisemitic intimidation, violence and exclusion in the city the decision to erase official statements affirming the safety and protection of Jews is not merely tone-deaf, it is shameful. It sends a message, whether intended or not, that Jewish New Yorkers are uniquely (undeserving) of continuity, clarity or reassurance from their own government.”

Mamdani’s insensitive choice of counsel, as well as the immediate scrubbing of his predecessor’s posts, suggests he has a revised blueprint for Jewish New Yorkers in 2026 that already appears more frigid, and is not in the interests of the collective.

National Post
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