New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly appointed anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbi Miriam Grossman to a taxpayer-funded faith liaison role, linking city hall to the city’s Jewish community.
The position will be part of Mamdani’s new Office of Mass Engagement, which is led by veteran Democratic Socialists of America organizer Tascha Van Auken.
Grossman was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She formerly served on the Rabbinical Council of the pro-Palestine Jewish Voice for Peace organization and is a current member-leader of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
At a JVP New York event in 2021, Grossman told the crowd: “I am a rabbi. I love my people, fiercely, all day, relentlessly. But as long as Palestinian lives are treated as disposable, as long as Palestinian families in east Jerusalem face ongoing ethnic cleansing, as long as Palestinian children fear for their lives, and as long as Gaza remains an open-air prison, our house as a people is not in order.”
On October 19, 2023 – just under two weeks after the Hamas massacre – Grossman wrote an op-ed in Lilith magazine in which she said Israel commits “apartheid and occupation” and “war crimes.” “Because today all I need to do is to call Congress for de-escalation and a ceasefire. Today I need to say apartheid and occupation ultimately does not keep anyone safe. Today I need to say war crimes do not justify war crimes. Today I need to keep my humanity.”
Rabbi Grossman’s public stance shifts toward Palestinian advocacy
In an interview with NPR in 2021, Grossman said “I used to consider myself a Zionist. I don’t consider myself a Zionist.”
She attended a January 2024 “Sabbath” celebration at a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn, sporting a tote bag for the group Rabbis for Ceasefire.
Grossman also participated in demonstrations against aid to Israel before and after the October 7 massacre.
While JVP positions itself as a representative of Jews who advocate for peace and human rights, most mainstream Jewish organizations and individuals dispute this.
JVP opposes Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state and believes dismantling it will lead to a future of “freedom, safety, and equality.”
In pursuit of this hateful goal, JVP leads Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns, including calls to end all US aid to Israel.
JVP links with groups tied to designated terrorist organizations
JVP has also collaborated with Samidoun, a group sanctioned by the US and Canada for funding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organization, and with Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted for her role in a PFLP bombing that killed two Jewish students in a Jerusalem supermarket in 1969. JVP has also compared Zionism to Nazism.
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice is an extremist, fringe left-wing Jewish group that believes antisemitism only exists within the far Right. JFREJ organizes most closely with JVP and IfNotNow, which are both in direct relationship with Palestinian groups.
The Jerusalem Post reached out to New York City Hall for comment.