JTA
Some of Mamdani’s Jewish allies criticize his use of ‘monsters’ to describe AIPAC
Andrew Lapin
June 22, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday defended his use of the word “monsters” to describe AIPAC at a rally Friday for progressive candidates, as some of his Jewish supporters expressed concern that the term may connote an antisemitic trope. The war of words came as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is increasingly a target of the progressive movement — including in acts of attempted violence — and as progressive Jews have accused some Israeli right-wing figures of dehumanizing liberal pro-Israel lobbying groups. “Calling AIPAC and its backers ‘monsters’ casts them as less than human, rather than as human beings who are one’s political opponents,” Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of the progressive rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, wrote in a Substack post Monday. READ MORE

NY POST Editorial Board: Mamdani takes the Jew-hate all the way to 11 Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week tore off the mask: He’s going full-on antisemite/ At last Thursday’s rally for his slate of extremist House candidates — Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez — Mamdani railed that we’re now living in a “time of monsters.” Who are these monsters? Though they “take many forms,” it’s … AIPAC. Yep: Per Mamdani, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is the heart of all evil in America; the only thing it fears more than democracy “is an end to genocide.” Reality check II: Israel’s recent war in Gaza featured no “genocide”; the Palestinian population has grown since Hamas started that war, indeed has grown every decade that Jerusalem has controlled Gaza and the West Bank.