It seemed inevitable that the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks would touch off tensions for Zohran Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel and the first Muslim mayor of a city that is 12 percent Jewish.
But Wednesday erupted with such anger and emotion that it seemed to overwhelm any efforts to solemnly mark the deadliest day in Israeli history.
Mr. Mamdani began the day shortly before 9 a.m. by issuing a statement that was meant to acknowledge the Oct. 7 anniversary but almost immediately caused an uproar among some Jewish leaders, who said it minimized Israeli suffering in the Hamas-led attacks.
It took a turn roughly 12 hours later at a vigil organized by Israeli peace activists in Union Square in Manhattan, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupted the event to jeer the mayor. He appeared ashen and upset as he left, without addressing the crowd, flanked by his security detail as he walked to a waiting S.U.V. at 8:50 p.m.
The events raised questions about whether Mr. Mamdani, who energized his campaign with his embrace of the Palestinian cause and ardent criticism of Israel, can now, as mayor, unite New Yorkers whose emotions remain inflamed over the issue.
“This is a moment when people are looking to see if we have the kind of leadership that brings people together, lowers the temperature and makes everyone feel respected,” said Mark Treyger, the chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council. “And today was just not it.”
The mayor, who is known for his broad, effervescent smile, seemed especially stung by the opposition to him expressed by the pro-Palestinian crowd in Union Square, given his consistent support of their cause.
During the vigil, he stared stone-faced, and at times looked crestfallen, as the activists chanted in support of Hamas, called for the deaths of Israeli soldiers and denounced him as a “traitor,” many citing his meetings with President Trump or his efforts to build ties with Jewish leaders.
“Zohran, you coward!” someone yelled from the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. Others yelled, “Zohran is a sellout!”
Mr. Mamdani’s day seemed carefully planned to avoid such spectacle. He spurned a politically freighted invitation from Israel’s consul general in New York to watch a 47-minute film showing footage from the Oct. 7 attacks, choosing instead to join the evening vigil hosted by Israelis for Peace, which was attended by many of his progressive Jewish allies. He then held a private meeting with Palestinian New Yorkers at Hind’s Hall, a Palestinian restaurant on the Upper West Side, to end the day.
But it was clear by midday that his statement had caused deep anger among many Jewish New Yorkers.
Unlike the statements issued by the governor and other elected leaders, Mr. Mamdani’s remarks focused far more on the suffering of Palestinians than on the killings of roughly 1,200 people and the abduction of 251 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. His words, which startled even some of his allies, acknowledged that the day was “profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers” but then pivoted to a denunciation of Israel for what he called the “devastating, ongoing genocide” in Gaza.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to a count from Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but which includes thousands of children.
“The suffering did not begin nor end that day,” Mr. Mamdani said, referring to Oct. 7, adding: “That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing.”
He did not provide a similarly detailed account of the Oct. 7 attacks.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said Mr. Mamdani’s statement was “morally perverse” and “like sticking a knife into the pain of the Jewish community in New York and in America.”
“It is so offensive to so many Jews that it is hard to describe how offensive it is,” he said. “And it exacerbated the feeling that American Jews and New York Jews have had since he first came to prominence, which is that he has a problem with collective Jewish empowerment and he hates the state of Israel.”
Mr. Mamdani is expected to answer questions about the events of the day during a news conference on Thursday morning alongside the City Council speaker, Julie Menin, a supporter of Israel.
For the duration of his still-fledgling mayoralty, Mr. Mamdani has had to walk a tightrope, eager to remain in the good graces of his progressive base even as he has sought to broaden his political appeal. He has veered center-ward on policing, and abandoned campaign promises that conflicted with the city’s budgetary limitations.
But on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he has been steadfast in condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza, at a time when the war has caused public support for Israel to drop sharply in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center.
When Mr. Mamdani released a video in July acknowledging that he lacked the authority to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, but denounced him as a “war criminal,” the anger among Jewish New Yorkers hit a fever pitch.
Many leaders publicly questioned why Mr. Mamdani would seek to focus so much attention on Israel’s actions at a time when antisemitic hate crimes and fear of violence remained elevated in his own city. And some worry that the issue may impede his progress on his broader agenda.
“There’s no winning on an issue like this when you’re the New York City mayor,” said Eric Phillips, who served as press secretary to former Mayor Bill de Blasio. “You say what you feel, and understand it’s not a job for people who need to be liked.”
In a meeting at City Hall in August, rabbis pleaded with Mr. Mamdani to tone down his anti-Israel rhetoric, arguing that it fueled the flames of antisemitism at home.
Afterward, Mr. Mamdani seemed to skip opportunities to intone against Israel. He avoided protests during Mr. Netanyahu’s visit to the United Nations, during which the prime minister inveighed against Mr. Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji.
Instead of releasing a social media video about Israel or Mr. Netanyahu, the mayor issued a brief statement saying the prime minister had used his U.N. speech “to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians,” and posted a video showing himself planting an olive tree with Palestinians from Gaza at Gracie Mansion, his official residence. “May peace be our future,” Mr. Mamdani said in a caption.
Days later, Mr. Mamdani’s office released a report on antisemitism in New York City that described the steps his administration was taking to prevent hate crimes and celebrate Jewish traditions. Some Jewish leaders criticized him for omitting substantive mention of Israel in the report. But pro-Palestinian activists excoriated him online for allocating money to a pro-Israel Jewish community group and, in some cases, even for issuing the report at all.
That a report meant to unify New Yorkers around a divisive issue instead angered people on both sides seemed to foretell the fury that Mr. Mamdani faced on Wednesday.
At the protests in Union Square, Yeasin Rani, 28, said he wanted to exert pressure on Mr. Mamdani so that “he isn’t totally co-opted by the powers that be.”
“He brings a lot of awareness to Palestinian issues and he’s moved the political conversation in a good direction, but he has been compromised recently,” Mr. Rani said. “But that’s to be expected with the mayor of New York City.”
The Palestinian cause has been central to Mr. Mamdani’s political identity since his days at Bowdoin College, when he founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. As a state assemblyman, he sponsored legislation that to strip tax-exempt status from nonprofits with ties to Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
And it was the fervently anti-Zionist Democratic Socialists of America that propelled the 34-year-old politician to the mayoralty.
Christine Quinn, the former City Council speaker, gave Mr. Mamdani a “tremendous amount of credit” for showing up to the vigil.
“Sometimes leadership isn’t about making everyone happy,” she said, “or even making one side happy.”
Claire Fahy, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Wesley Parnell and Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.
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