By Warren H. Cohn, JNS
The energy of politics was passionate, electric, and yes, a bit messy, but it wasn’t hateful.
I grew up in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., the grandson of a proud Democrat, a judge and an assemblyman who devoted his life to the city. There’s even a park named after him in nearby Williamsburg, a small but lasting tribute to a man who believed that public service was about bringing people together. My father followed in his footsteps, also dedicating his life to the city he loved.
I tried to do the same. In 2010, I ran for office in the Democratic Party primary and lost to Lincoln Restler, a good man and someone I still respect. I also worked for Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz, helping organize multicultural and interfaith events that celebrated what made New York great—our differences, our shared humanity and our pride in one another. Back then, even people who disagreed on everything politically could still share a stage, a parade, or a meal.
I remember those days vividly. People like pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour, who has become a symbol of division and radicalization, once seemed like a partner in dialogue—any ally in the shared belief that coexistence among different sectors of the population was possible. The energy of Brooklyn politics was passionate, electric, and yes, a bit messy, but it wasn’t hateful.
That was the New York I knew. That was the Democratic Party I believed in.
The rise of state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, and those like him represent something entirely different—a rot in New York politics. What he preaches isn’t progress or justice. It is hatred disguised as activism, and antisemitism dressed up as empathy. Clip after clip shows it clearly—a relentless campaign of hostility toward the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
The fact that some Satmar groups would even consider supporting him is beyond tragic. It shows how far we’ve strayed from basic moral clarity. These aren’t the politics of helping the working class or fighting inequality; they’re the politics of poison and deceit.
Mamdani isn’t a reformer. He’s a cancer in the body of New York’s political culture, and his ideas are delusional and dangerous. If this is what the Democratic Party has become, then the Brooklyn that my grandfather and father served—the city that raised me—no longer exists.
I now live in Florida, after more than 30 years of traffic, taxes, crime and increasing decay. My dad knows that I now vote Republican because I couldn’t identify with the progressive “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives. I left the city I loved because I no longer recognized it. And now, watching from afar, I can barely stomach what I see.
When Mamdani stands on a stage and weaponizes family stories to justify his hatred, I think back to my own. I grew up by the Brooklyn Bridge. I remember 9/11—the smell of smoke, the chaos, the sight of surgeons and EMS workers doing everything they could to save lives. That smell, of death and evil, stayed with me.
I smelled it again 20 years later, at Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel, after Hamas massacred innocent civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. The stench of human cruelty doesn’t change; it only reappears when we stop recognizing evil for what it is.
With a Mamdani win, what does that say about us? Has Rome fallen? Are we so numb that we can elect a man who hates Jews, despises Israel and divides every community that he touches?
The Brooklyn I loved would never have allowed that.
The New York I believed in—diverse, tough, compassionate, but one that worked for and with individual communities—would never have stood for it.
But that’s the test now.
Because history doesn’t repeat itself quietly. It roars, if we let it.
