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New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani condemned the horrific Hanukkah attack in Australia as a “vile act of antisemitic terror” and vowed to “keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.”
Mamdani’s comments this weekend came in response to the mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which left at least 15 people dead and dozens wounded. Australian authorities have described the attack as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community.
“Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness,” Mamdani said in a statement. “This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world.”
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Police cordon off an area at Bondi Beach after a terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 14, 2025. (Mark Baker/AP Photo)
But Mamdani, who made history last month as the first Muslim elected mayor of the nation’s most populous city and who had strained relations with many in New York City’s Jewish community due to his very vocal criticism of Israel, has not said if he’s changing his stance regarding his past reluctance to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
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After his double-digit June victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, which sent political shockwaves across the nation, Mamdani said he would “discourage” the use of the phrase, which has been seen as a call to violence against Jews.
reached out to the mayor-elect’s team on Monday but did not receive a response at the time this report was posted.
Zohran Mamdani delivers a victory speech at a mayoral election night watch party, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
The mass shooting in Australia took place during a public Hanukkah event. Police said the suspected attackers were a father and his adult son. The father was killed at the scene, while the son was shot by police and taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The incoming mayor, who will take office next month, noted that one of the victims was Rabbi Eli Schlanger, “who held deep ties to Crown Heights,” which is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn that has long been home to a large population of Hasidic Jews.
Schlanger had recently penned a letter to Australia’s prime minister urging him to be more supportive of Israel.
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Mamdani pledged, “When I am Mayor, I will work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe—on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day. Let this be a purpose shared by every New Yorker, and let us banish this horrific violence to the past.”
Mamdani’s statement, which he posted on social media, had received over four million views on X as of early Monday afternoon.
