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Israeli billboard of Mamdani and ayatollah comes as NYC rabbis plead for cooler heads
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Aug 20, 2026
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JACK GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Aug 20, 2026
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This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that shape New Yorkers' lives.
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Residents of Tel Aviv woke up this weekend to a massive campaign billboard featuring the face of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The message “Don’t let them win” is scrawled across the billboard in Hebrew. The young mayor is depicted alongside Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Naim Qassem, secretary-general of the militant group Hezbollah.
“They want Netanyahu to lose,” the billboard also reads.
The political attack comes as Jewish leaders in New York City are asking Mamdani to tone down his recent rhetoric regarding the Israeli government. A group of 10 rabbis sat down with the mayor in a private meeting last week to request he soften his criticism of the country at a time when antisemitic attacks are on the rise.
The billboard isn’t helping local efforts to lower the temperature, said Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson, who attended the meeting and is executive director of the liberal advocacy group New York Jewish Agenda. She said she found the message “particularly offensive,” but wasn’t surprised by it.
“ It’s clear that this is Islamophobic on Netanyahu's part, and is fearmongering,” she said.
A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s striking to see Mamdani, the democratically elected leader of an American city, alongside a religious autocrat, a president facing allegations of widespread voter suppression, and the leader of a group the United States considers a terrorist organization.
But it shows how large Mamdani looms as an antagonist for Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud Party, which paid for the billboard. Netanyahu later posted a photo of the sign on his social media channels. https://x.com/netanyahu/status/2089008064422691026?s=20
Israel’s parliamentary elections are in October, and with the Likud Party down in the polls, Netanyahu’s hold on power appears tenuous.
The billboard follows a direct-to-camera video Mamdani posted last month in which he said Netanyahu was a “war criminal” and called on the federal government to arrest him.
The video has over 100 million views on X. President Donald Trump has said he would not arrest Netanyahu.
Mamdani was referencing Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed over 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children, according to an independent United Nations commission report published in June. Israel invaded Gaza after the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when fighters with the militant group Hamas killed over 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
The New York City rabbis who have been in discussion with the mayor said the war abroad is threatening Jewish people at home. But they want Mamdani to decry antisemitism in the same breath as his condemnation of the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians.
Rabbi Michelle Dardashti of Cobble Hill’s Kane Street Synagogue said she doesn’t think the mayor’s words have directly led to attacks on Jewish New Yorkers. “I do believe, however, and conveyed in the meeting we had, that his rhetoric increases negative attention on Jews writ large and we're feeling the effects of that,” she said in an email.
“ When people feel real and well-founded anger at what is going on in Gaza, in Lebanon, in the West Bank, and they feel that sense of permission to take out that anger on their Jewish neighbors in New York, that permission structure is a function of antisemitism,” Hughes-Robinson said.
Hughes-Robinson said she felt the mayor was open and receptive to their appeals. And she hopes Mamdani maintains a measured response to Netanyahu’s public goading.
“I think that Netanyahu has done a lot of other things that make the world less safe for Jewish people in Israel and Palestine, in New York, and all over the world, beyond the billboard,” Hughes-Robinson said.
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This week in New York politics
- The percentage of applicants for One-Shot Deal emergency grants, which help tenants cover unpaid rent, remained flat after Mamdani took office, despite the mayor making eviction prevention and tenant protections a hallmark of his campaign.
- Volunteers of America say fixing up crumbling shelters will help homeless New Yorkers move out more quickly.
- Landlords will have the opportunity to buy their way out of a climate law through an energy credits program initiated by previous Mayor Eric Adams.
- Groups that provide services to crime victims — including rape survivors — are sounding the alarm over millions of dollars in lost state funding.
- Five years ago, one of the state’s top judges found Queens prosecutors had deliberately hidden evidence that could have spared three men decades in prison. A disciplinary committee asked to investigate the incident cleared them anyway.
- State lawmakers hoping to lift an effective ban on New York City’s gay bathhouses may have a long road of regulatory hurdles ahead — even if the legislation passes.
- Trump endorsed Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s gubernatorial run, attacking Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democrats in the state as soft on crime.
- A bill to bar private businesses from scanning customers' faces has won the backing of the Mamdani administration and a majority of the City Council, according to its sponsors.
- An independent audit found Jersey City’s finances are a mess as the city stares down a huge tax hike.
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Walter Wuthmann
Walter Wuthmann is a reporter covering public safety and the legal system.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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