As Zohran Mamdani leads in the polls, his unprecedented candidacy is testing the city’s long-standing political and cultural ties with its Jewish community and the State of Israel.

NEW YORK — With just weeks to go before election day, New York’s mayoral race remains unpredictable. One thing, however, is clear: it’s been unlike any in the city’s modern history. If frontrunner Zohran Mamdani wins on November 4, it would mark an extraordinary shift in New York City’s Jewish history. He would be the city’s first anti-Israel mayor, the first without close ties to the city’s large and diverse Jewish population, and the first in decades to face accusations of peddling antisemitism—or, at the very least, of failing to forcefully denounce it.