Op-Ed | How we lost our youth

Our wonderful city has experienced much turmoil since it was consolidated as the City of Greater New York in the year 1898.

Poverty, crime, corruption and much more have been challenges New York has had to overcome.

It has grown to become the most famous city in the modern world. A city that has established itself as a center of commerce, arts, innovation, medicine, finance and home of the best Bagel on Earth!

New York is famous for the gritty “get it done and don’t say die” attitude of the citizenry.

New York is blessed with being a home for immigrants of all stripes and backgrounds. A shelter for refugees from around the world. I am a proud third-generation New Yorker, with my great-grandfather coming over from Europe during World War I.

New York has been the city where hard work does not go unrewarded. Many have seen remarkable success in their entrepreneurial ventures.

New York has been a city that has counted Jews among its most active citizens. Jewish New Yorkers have been a pivotal and central part of the growth, development and leadership of the city, from Robert Moses to Ed Koch and Michael Bloomberg.

Religious Jews found refuge in New York with the most fervent building centers and international headquarters in Brooklyn – Chabad and Satmar to name a few.

This is why the recent election of Zohran Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York has come as such a great shock.

In the opinion of many, his politics are anathema to the very principles that have built this great Metropolis. I will focus my comments on his very troubling attitude towards Israel.

The U.S.A. has long been a steadfast ally of the Jewish State. This policy is grounded in a deep appreciation of the integral role that Israel plays in the Middle East.

Israel is a vibrant democracy serving as a bulwark against the forces of radical fundamentalism that have flourished in that region.

This has long been the policy of our great country. One of the major annual events in New York is the Israel Day Parade, where New York mayors and governors march in support of the Jewish State.

Zohran Mamdani has been outspoken and unapologetic in his shocking comments against Israel. He has repeatedly accused Israel of being an apartheid State, even while Arabs serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. He has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide, even as experts from around the world have declared that Israel is fighting in the most just and humane way possible.

What is most troubling about Mamdani’s victory is that he received 33% of the Jewish vote. This fault line within the Jewish community is even more disturbing due to the fact that so many young Jews supported him.

How have we lost our youth?

How is it that so many young New York Jews who are so well educated are yet so ignorant about their own religious identity? How can it be that they don’t understand the centrality of Israel to our very essence?

For thousands of years, Jews have prayed three times daily for a return to Israel. When we pray, we face Israel. We all remember the blue box where pennies were collected to send to Israel to help rebuild the land.

Where is the Jewish sense of pride in the miracle that is Israel?

I can’t answer this question.

I know, however, that to answer this question, to find the antidote to this disengagement, calls for a massive campaign to reconnect our young people to their roots.

Whether it be through signing up more young Jews to go on the Birthright trips to Israel – a trip that is life-changing for so many, whether it be through having more Jewish students at colleges around the country participating in their local Chabad and Hillel programs, whether it be through engaging more young Jews in cool Jewish activities, one thing is for certain – the status quo cannot be allowed to continue.

These youngsters are not aware that assimilating into the fabric of the society they live in does not engender more pro-Jewish feelings among the populace. What has been proven again and again is that people respect people who respect themselves and what they stand for.

It behooves us – the greater Jewish community, to reach out with love to every young person that we know and share the knowledge that we have, the joy that we experience, the wholesomeness that we feel, when we live our lives as proud Jewish New Yorkers who appreciate and support the Holy Land of Israel, and we elect proud New York leaders who understand the same.

Rabbi Yossi Blesofsky is the Director of Chabad of Northeast Queens.