I love New York City

I’m not surprised, but I am heartbroken.

I love New York City.

Where my grandparents settled after they escaped the Shoah and started a new chapter for our family. Where I went every weekend growing up, the bastion of culture, of opportunity. The site of 9/11, which shaped my adolescence. Where I went to college, fell in love, and pursued graduate school. Where we lived as newlyweds and where my daughter was born. I can still feel the rattle of the subway lines and the woosh of the trains running by. From uptown to downtown, different ethnicities and styles in every neighborhood. The music, the food, the energy. The cabs and traffic, and hustle. The steam coming out of the grates in the streets. The melting pot of New York, of America.

The city where anything can happen.

I love you, New York.

The city that welcomed Jews to America is the largest community of Jews outside of Israel.

Today, I say goodbye to the version of New York that raised me.

I’m mourning the quiet, unspoken belonging that lived between us.

You know what I learned from Trump being elected to office? That God is in control. You may have strong opinions about the candidate- what they say, their style, and what they advocate for. But the will of the people is nothing compared to the will of God.

Zohran Mamdani won because we’re moving into a new stage of history. This means something- we can guess, but we don’t know for sure yet what it is.

This election isn’t about one politician.

It is a symbol of a cultural shift.

A signal of what is now considered mainstream.

A sign that rhetoric once recognized as dangerous and dehumanizing can now be spoken openly and receive applause.

New York didn’t just elect a mayor; it revealed what it is willing to normalize.

And we need to pay attention to that.

Firstly, I know that some Jews voted for him because they believed they were choosing compassion, justice, or progress. I'm with you. But we have reached a moment where we must look honestly at what those choices now mean for Jewish safety, dignity, and belonging, when compassion, justice, or progress is extended to everyone except us.

New Yorkers elected someone who has consistently villainized the IDF, refuses to condemn Ham*s as a terrorist organization, accuses Israel of committing “gen*cide,” supports BDS, chants at anti-Israel rallies, aligns himself with figures like Linda Sarsour, and rides a political and cultural wave in which anti-Z*onist rhetoric has become social currency. We need to take a step back and ask what this says about our neighbors, about Jewish safety and belonging, and about the soul of New York City itself.

Secondly, we have an opportunity to ask why him, why now?

What are we supposed to do with this information?

On a spiritual and practical sense, what does it mean about the Jewish presence in New York?

What does God want us to do with this information?

I know some will choose to stay and fight for the Jewish communities of the city. I can’t comment on whether they will be successful- history and patterns are not on your side. Nothing is new under the sun. But who knows?

I respect the choice and know that our people are worth fighting for. My heart breaks for our NY Z*onist warriors and advocates today. It’s not going to be an easy fight.

So, if today you hear the call to stand up and push back, barricade the doors to your institutions, remain true to your values and what you’ve built, and stand proud- I am with you. May God protect you all and give you strength for this next chapter in the history of New York.

Many of our other world cities have fallen to the scourge of antisemitism and, at times, anarchy. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Athens, Dublin, Sydney, and more. Whether it’s been White nationalist and neo-Nazi movements, Far-left anti-Zionist political activism, or Islamist political movements and foreign influence networks- these are places where it’s become dangerous for Jews to be identifiably Jewish.

During times like these, I choose to remember that the only thing that differentiates the experience of antisemitism as Jews today, from any other moment in the Diaspora Jewish history (expulsion, exile, persecution, growth, assimilation, betrayal, pogrom, over and over again) is that for the first time since our exile began thousands of years ago, we have our ancestral home back.

Yes, in Israel we’ve been battered and bruised the last few years, but we are strong. Vibrant. Thriving. Growing.

And we take care of ourselves.

This isn’t a “make aliyah post.”

Everyone needs to choose the path that is aligned with their lives.

History doesn’t always care what we choose, I know that. These are storms that are bigger than us that push and pull us in directions we didn't initially envision for ourselves.

All I’ll say is this: here in Israel, there is a home for every type of Jew.

Whether you’re LGBTQ+ or straight, right or left, Asheknazi or Sephardi, young or old. No matter what language you speak, the way you dress, what your name is-- there is a place for you here.

If you woke up afraid today, I am with you.

It’s scary to go or to stay.

Yet I believe we are moving down the messianic timeline. Politicians and political movements are just pawns in God’s direction of history.

We have agency as human beings. Free will.

But we are also students of history. The people of the book. One nation with one heart.

Whatever you feel today, whatever decisions are on the table before you: remember who you are. Where you come from. What you stand for.

Take comfort that you are not alone. That you are loved. That you are wanted.

Do not trade your inheritance for their approval.

Do not shrink into the “good Jew,” the passing Jew —

the one who is safe only when they forget where they come from.

Remember who you are.

Claim your name, your people, your story.

Every one of us deserves safety.

Every one of us deserves to stand without apology.

May God protect us all.