Exclusive | Jewish New Yorkers furious over bizarre pro-Zohran Mamdani texts evoking Oct. 7 attacks: Disgusted
Jewish New Yorkers were “stunned” and “disgusted” in the run-up to Tuesday’s mayoral primary by bizarre pro-Zohran Mamdani text messages claiming to come from a friend of a slain Oct.7, 2023 terror attack victim.The shady sender told a registered Democratic voter — who shared the texts with The Post — that they were an Orthodox Jew supporting Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel and its war in Gaza.“I want to go a bit off script for a second because I’m Jewish, wear a kippah every day, and I support Zohran,” the text said.“My friend Idan was murdered on October 7 at the Re’im music festival.
The war is personal to me, as it is to many in our community.Idan believed in peace, just like Zohran does,” the June 12 message continued, invoking the memory of a murdered Israeli.The gobsmacking messages came after the Jewish voter responded to an initial text tagged with “Zohran for NYC” by arguing that Mamdani wouldn’t receive any votes from Jewish New Yorkers like them.The voter said they were “stunned” and “disgusted” by the texts seemingly trying to exploit the memory of murdered Jewish people to drum up votes for Mamdani — who appeared to be running neck-and-neck with former Gov.
Andrew Cuomo in the heated Democratic primary.“It’s trying to normalize that other Jews are voting for him, that he’s for the Jewish people – even though everything he says is the opposite of that,” said the voter, an Upper East Side Democrat who backed Cuomo and Whitney Tilson in the ranked-choice contest.Who sent the texts and whether they were a dirty political ploy launched by one of Mamdani’s campaign rivals was unclear — as was whether they’re from a text bot or a volunteer.It also wasn’t known how many New York City voters had received the messages.Another New Yorker who received a text claiming to be from the Mamdani campaign answered the political pitch with the same response, explaining that he’s Jewish and received the exac...