Karen Schneier Dresbach, daughter of 96-year-old Holocaust survivor Rabbi Arthur Schneier, publicly accused Mayor Zohran Mamdani of fueling "Jewish hatred" in New York City, and said she believes many Jewish voters now regret supporting him.
Schneier Dresbach, executive vice president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, made the accusation Sunday on 770 WABC's "Cats Roundtable" program, tying a pattern of antisemitic attacks in Manhattan directly to the mayor's anti-Israel rhetoric and policy positions. Her father's own synagogue, Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side, has been targeted twice, and a separate alleged hate crime struck Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue and East 55th Street during a Shabbat service.
Mamdani's office had no immediate comment on Schneier Dresbach's accusations. A spokesperson had told the New York Post the previous week that the administration "will continue using every tool at our disposal to stamp out hatred and build a city where every New Yorker is not only safe, but feels a true sense of inclusion and belonging."
That assurance rings hollow to the Schneier family, and to a growing number of Jewish New Yorkers watching their houses of worship come under siege while City Hall hedges.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier fled Budapest as a child and arrived in the United States in 1947. He built Park East Synagogue into one of the most prominent congregations in Manhattan and founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation to promote religious freedom, human rights, and interfaith dialogue around the world. In 2001, then-President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Now 96, Schneier has watched antisemitism close in on his own doorstep. Anti-Israel protesters swarmed Park East Synagogue last year, an incident Schneier told the Post in November left him shaken. His daughter described the toll on a man who saw his childhood synagogue in Europe destroyed.
Schneier Dresbach put it in stark terms on the radio:
"I don't know how you expect a man to feel who saw his synagogue burn to the ground as a child and now has his synagogue attacked twice in the United States, and now to witness, almost on a daily basis, the egregious attacks, these heinous attacks on houses of worship, synagogues, [on Jews]... It's insanity!"
The words carry a particular weight coming from the family of a man who survived the Holocaust and spent decades building bridges between faiths, only to find the hatred circling back in the city he made his home.
Mamdani has faced repeated accusations from Jewish leaders that his rhetoric emboldens hostility toward their communities, a charge his office has consistently deflected with general statements about inclusion.
Schneier Dresbach did not hold back about where she believes responsibility lies. She pointed to Mamdani's record as a staunch critic of Israel, his support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and his public call for New Yorkers to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming visit to Manhattan during the United Nations General Assembly next month. Mamdani has accused Netanyahu of being a war criminal.
She told the radio audience:
"When you have a mayor of the city of New York, who continues to spew rhetoric... this just fuels Jewish hatred in our city."
Schneier Dresbach said antisemitism "exploded" after Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed. But she drew a direct line from the mayor's public posture to the climate on New York streets and inside New York synagogues.
Mamdani has previously said he has "zero tolerance" for antisemitism and has dedicated additional funds to address it, though his office has not specified dollar amounts or named particular programs. The gap between that pledge and the escalating incidents is precisely what Schneier Dresbach challenged.
That gap widened further when a violent anti-Israel riot erupted outside Park East Synagogue on May 5, 2026. Roughly 100 masked individuals clashed with NYPD officers for hours. Rather than condemning the violence outright, Mamdani's spokesman said the mayor was "deeply opposed" to the synagogue event itself, a fundraiser, and stressed the importance of ensuring "all protesters are able to exercise their First Amendment rights." Critics argued that framing effectively sided with the mob over the congregants.
Mamdani's record of reversing campaign pledges on matters involving Israel has only deepened skepticism about the sincerity of his stated opposition to antisemitism.
Schneier Dresbach also addressed the alleged hate crime at Central Synagogue, where a man identified as Larry Montes allegedly entered the building during a Shabbat service and attacked a congregant and a security guard. The incident occurred just days before her radio appearance.
She pushed back hard against any suggestion that the attacker was simply mentally unstable:
"It's very premeditated. When somebody says, 'Oh, the guy who ran into Central Synagogue was a crazy person.' He wasn't so crazy."
"If he was crazy, he would have gone out anywhere in the street and yelled. He specifically picked a synagogue."
The distinction matters. Dismissing antisemitic violence as the work of disturbed loners strips it of its ideological dimension, and lets political leaders off the hook for the climate they help create. Schneier Dresbach was not willing to let that happen.
Mamdani's administration has also drawn scrutiny for claiming credit for policies it did not create, raising broader questions about whether the mayor's public statements can be taken at face value.
Perhaps the sharpest moment of the interview came when Schneier Dresbach turned her criticism toward Jewish voters who supported Mamdani's candidacy. She suggested the mayor's record should have been disqualifying, and that the consequences are now impossible to ignore.
"To Jews who voted socialist and for Mamdani,... sometimes you learn the hard way. What did they say in The Wizard of Oz? 'Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.'... I'm sure many [Jews] have buyer's remorse, certainly with regard to their votes for Mayor Mamdani."
The comment reflects a frustration shared by many in New York's Jewish community who warned during the campaign that Mamdani's BDS support, his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and his broader ideological alignment with the anti-Israel left would translate into real-world consequences for Jewish residents. Those warnings, Schneier Dresbach argued, have now been validated by events.
Even Mamdani's own team has shown sensitivity to the antisemitism charge. His aides confronted ABC executives after a television host applied the label during the campaign, an episode that suggests the accusation carries political weight the administration would rather suppress than answer.
Meanwhile, a Gold Star family blocked Mamdani from speaking at a Queens funeral for a soldier killed overseas, a public rejection that underscored how deeply his conduct has alienated communities beyond Jewish New York.
Mamdani's defenders will point to his general statements against bigotry and his claim of additional funding. But general statements do not protect synagogues. Funding announcements without specifics do not reassure congregants who watched masked rioters surround their house of worship while the mayor's office talked about First Amendment rights for the mob.
Schneier Dresbach's accusation is not that Mamdani personally ordered attacks on Jewish institutions. It is that his rhetoric, his BDS support, his refusal to recognize the Jewish state, his public calls to protest Israel's prime minister, his characterization of Netanyahu as a war criminal, creates a permission structure. When the mayor of the largest city in America signals that hostility toward Israel is righteous, some people hear a license to act on hostility toward Jews.
Rabbi Schneier survived the destruction of his childhood synagogue in Europe. He came to America, built a new one, and spent decades promoting the idea that people of different faiths could coexist with mutual respect. At 96, he is watching that work tested by a political climate his own city's mayor has helped create.
A city that cannot keep its synagogues safe while its mayor lectures residents about the First Amendment rights of the people threatening those synagogues has a leadership problem, not a messaging problem.