Josh Yunis: How Jewish leftists are navigating a Zohran Mamdani world

Zohran Mamdani, while running to be mayor of New York City, initially refused to disavow the slogan “Globalize the Intifada”. Once he did eventually reverse course on that, it came off more as politically expedient than a genuine act of bridge-building or moral leadership.

That's how it struck Josh Yunis, a Jewish leftist who writes a Substack called The Diaspora. The incident felt part of a broader trend of alienation leftist Jews are feeling, finding themselves caught between right-wing ethnonationalism and left-wing selective empathy. This lack of principled universalism seems to justify Jewish skepticism, especially given historical precedents of anti-Zionism leading to Jewish marginalization.

Yunis joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the latest episode of The Jewish Angle to expand on these arguments and give a balanced take on what many try to paint as a black-and-white issue.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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