Mamdani Plans, G-d Laughs

Rejected title: York al-jadeeda

The recent election of Zohran K. Mamdani to mayor of New York City worried nearly all the Jewish people I know. Concern about politics is very valid and a huge attention draw to many highly intelligent people, who are not quite wise enough to fear G-d.

To be fair, every election in living memory has caused the intelligentsia to be concerned about the election results, no matter what they are. Good citizens do not generally like the people in power, because they are all politicians, and even if they do, by a stroke of luck, happen to like an elected official, they look at the voting patterns and worry about what that means for the United States democracy, foreign policy, economy, and their dating prospects.

It goes without saying that I, personally, prefer that every time someone is elected, it is someone who gets along with me so well that I don’t even have to ask them to subscribe to my substack. It would be great if every person in a leadership position only ever used their power in ways that I personally approve of. For example, everything I want my husband to do should absolutely be legally mandated, and everything that even slightly annoys me, like putting chocolate chips into oatmeal cookies, should be forbidden by law. And everyone should vote for this, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, my husband is unlikely to vote for this, and what makes this even less likely is that, nowadays, he is mostly the one who votes. At this point, please note that I am a registered democrat and minored in Political Science and believe that that voting is your civic obligation and really really important.

Unlike everyone else who didn’t vote, I have really outstanding excuses. I was literally giving birth during the 2020 presidential election. Right now I am recovering from pneumonia and struggle to breathe outside the house, so I limit my travels outside to doctor visits and picking up medicine from pharmacies, and I have Paperwork Processing Pathology that is so bad that I have gone years without figuring out how to correct two of my children’s birth certificates. One has the name misspelled, and the other claims I am ten years older than I am, and if I can’t get that fixed, you definitely shouldn’t expect me to figure out how to vote.

I thought of a religious justification, too. In Jewish law, women are not obligated in time-bound commandments. Voting is a time-bound civic obligation. Therefore, according to my religion, I should not be obligated to vote. Also, I haven’t been able to anyway, and it is always nice to have religious justification after the fact when I don’t feel like doing something.

This really annoys my husband, because he wants me to be the one who cares about voting. He used to claim he only voted because I made him do it, but he can no longer get away with that excuse. He will just have to own that he cares about elections. I care about them too, really I do, or I wouldn’t be writing this.

Back to Zohran K Mamdani, everyone is very upset about it, as far as I know. Now he is pretty bad, as politicians go. On the scale I just invented, of Churchill to Hitler, he’s probably closer to ... Hitler. He hates Israel, loves communism, and ran Yiddish-language ads, providing money to newspapers in insulated communities. These are facts. But facts are not enough to explain how serious the situation is in New York.

We may guess at some of the more obnoxious possibilities. He might change the name of New York to “York al-jadeeda” and declare it Muslim. The reason I think he would keep the York part is to honor York, England for expelling Jews in the 1200s. He won’t really mind if Muslims attack Jews on the streets of New York City. He already believe that Abraham almost sacrificed Ishmael and not Isaac. And worse.

As Jews, this should not surprise us. G-d has put us in exile for our sins, and no election result will affect that in any way. Only repentance, prayer, and charity can overcome a bad decree.

For the real leftists, I suggest praying to Allah if that’s more comfortable. Nothing will ever be comfortable about repentance, and charity is likewise an extremely difficult activity to engage in.

In conclusion, turning to a Higher Power is what will change your life, not an election.

Isha Yiras Hashem