In his quest to beat Gov. Kathy Hochul, Bruce Blakeman has gone to considerable lengths to court Jewish voters across New York.
He has visited synagogues and yeshivas across the state, pointing to his own Jewish faith while imploring Jewish voters to support him. On Sunday, Mr. Blakeman went a step further, using vitriolic rhetoric aimed at the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, in a private meeting with Hasidic leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Mr. Blakeman praised the close-knit nature of the community but sounded an ominous note. “If there is rioting here, if they’re burning down the yeshivas and your shuls, and burning down your house and raping your women, you think Zohran Mamdani is going to stop them?” he said in the meeting, according to audio excerpts obtained by The New York Times, which have not previously been reported.
“Kathy Hochul doesn’t have the backbone to do it,” he added. He then referred to the 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn. “We saw this happen in Crown Heights when Dave Dinkins was mayor. It was minor compared to what could happen,” he said.
The Crown Heights unrest began when Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old Black boy, was killed by a driver in the motorcade of the leader of the Chabad movement. A group of young Black men later killed Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, a Jewish student. It is one of the most searing instances of racial disorder in the city’s recent history, and a state report found that Mr. Dinkins waited too long to order the police to quell the riots.
Since entering the governor’s race, Mr. Blakeman, who is the first Jewish Nassau County executive and keeps a kosher home, has regularly used Mr. Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, as a cudgel. His hope is to win support among Jewish voters who are angered by Mr. Mamdani’s views on Israel and wary of Ms. Hochul’s good relationship with the mayor.
If Mr. Blakeman is able to make inroads in the Hasidic community, which tends to vote as a bloc, it could help boost his prospects. A recent string of public polls shows Ms. Hochul leading Mr. Blakeman by between nine and 19 percentage points.
Mr. Mamdani declined to comment on the recordings of Mr. Blakeman’s remarks.
Some Jewish politicians and community leaders said that while they disagreed with the mayor on certain issues, Mr. Blakeman was using a well-leafed playbook of hyping fear for political gain.
“It’s very easy to scare people 80 years after the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of a faction of the Satmar Hasidic group that has endorsed Ms. Hochul.
“They use hypotheticals to make fear,” Rabbi Indig added. “The fact of the matter is crime is at its lowest. With the smallest incidents they act on it right away.”
Rabbi Indig pointed to the quick response of Mr. Mamdani and Jessica Tisch, the city police commissioner, after a man rammed his vehicle repeatedly into the Chabad Lubavitch headquarters in Crown Heights in January. Though he has continued to criticize the state of Israel in ways that have angered many Jewish New Yorkers, Mr. Mamdani has budgeted about $26 million for the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. He has also been a regular presence at Jewish celebrations across the city.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign directed The Times to Mark Levine, who is the city comptroller and backs the governor. He criticized Mr. Blakeman’s remarks, saying, “It’s wildly irresponsible rhetoric for an elected official to spread this kind of fear.”
Mr. Levine has also been critical of Mr. Mamdani and applauded Ms. Hochul’s push this year to create a new law instituting protest buffer zones around religious institutions.
“We do have very real antisemitic fears here in New York. It really cheapens the actual fight in front of us,” said Mr. Levine, who is Jewish. “As for Governor Hochul, she got the buffer law passed, which was an extremely challenging political fight and one which cost her politically.”
He added, “That’s not the action of a person who is indifferent to the safety of the Jewish community.”
The governor and the mayor have forged a surprisingly fruitful alliance that began last year when Ms. Hochul became one of the most prominent Democrats to endorse Mr. Mamdani despite their deep ideological differences, particularly on Israel. Mr. Mamdani reciprocated in February, backing Ms. Hochul and pointing to their efforts to increase child care options across the state, among other policy initiatives.
Mr. Blakeman has been unrelenting in his attacks on Mr. Mamdani and on politicians critical of Israel. In recent weeks, he has said that Mr. Mamdani should not have attended memorial events surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and blasted the mayor for his comments on Oct. 7, the third anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel.
During the summer, Mr. Blakeman accused Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally who defeated Representative Dan Goldman in a Democratic primary in June, of being disloyal to his Jewish faith, suggesting that Mr. Lander would have helped the Nazis if given the chance.
During his recent meetings with Jewish leaders, Mr. Blakeman observed that he needed the Hasidic community’s support to win in November.
“People don’t like Kathy Hochul. They don’t like her and they don’t like her association with Zohran Mamdani,” he said, according to the audio excerpts obtained by The Times.
“It’s the perfect storm for the Democrats. We are poised to win, but obviously we need help.”
Mr. Blakeman did not dispute the veracity of the recordings. “Zohran Mamdani refuses to condemn the battle cry of terrorists who raped women and murdered babies,” he said in a statement on Monday.
Mr. Mamdani has repeatedly denounced the Hamas attack on Israel, both during the campaign and since taking office.
Rabbi David Katz, executive director of the Israel Heritage Foundation, was present at the meetings with Mr. Blakeman, including one at the home of Joel Landau, a politically connected and controversial businessman.
Like Mr. Blakeman, Mr. Katz expressed fears about how Mr. Mamdani’s comments about arresting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his rhetoric on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack could make New York less safe for Jews. On Oct. 7, Mr. Mamdani issued a statement condemning the “the horrific war crimes” committed by Hamas three years ago, but angered some Jewish New Yorkers by including an extensive reprimand of the Israeli military’s prosecution of the war in Gaza since.
Rabbi Katz said the mayor’s comments had aggravated tensions rather than soothed them. He then praised Mr. Blakeman.
“His words make me feel much better,” Rabbi Katz said. “He is a person that has nicer values and doesn’t say thing that he shouldn’t.”
Sally Goldenberg contributed reporting.
The post Blakeman Launches Graphic Attack on Mamdani in Meeting With Hasidic Jews appeared first on New York Times.
