NewsBusters has filed plenty of complaints against the snarky, anti-Republican, twisted, Christian-hostile work of the New York Times reporter Liam Stack, but he managed a tough story on the hateful anti-Jewish rhetoric and actions of the left-wing’s new poster boy, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Stack’s Monday edition story, “Stabbings Prompt a Rise in Fears Among Jews and Questions for Mamdani,” went so far as to suggest a link between Mayor’s Mamdani’s inflammatory rhetoric, including threats to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, and the fear felt by Jewish New Yorkers over a surge in anti-Jewish assaults, including a recent stabbing of two men on the Upper West Side.
After years of linking President Trump and boilerplate conservative rhetoric to violent attacks on Asians, Latinos, and Jews, the paper actually applied the same standard to left-wing rhetoric – with far more justification.
The story even made the lead of the paper's “N.Y. Today” daily email: “N.Y. Today: Stabbing Stirs Fear Among New York’s Jewish Community and Inflames Debate -- Some politicians said Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had created a dangerous environment. He pushed back, condemning the stabbings of two men on the Upper West Side and defending his statements.”
Stack began:
Moshe Grunhaus was leaving the Jewish Center in Manhattan when he was stabbed in broad daylight on Thursday, rattling a Jewish community already on edge and inflaming the debate about Israel and antisemitism.
The man police arrested, Raul Morales, was charged late Friday with two counts of attempted murder as a hate crime. He first stabbed an Asian man, Chok Sung, according to prosecutors, before attacking Mr. Grunhaus, who was wearing a yarmulke. In both attacks, Mr. Morales yelled “Allahu akbar,” a frequently used Islamic religious phrase, according to prosecutors.
The assaults deepened the tension between many Jewish leaders and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel.
Pro-Israel groups had been warning for months that Mr. Mamdani’s rhetoric on Israel could worsen antisemitism, as the mayor said repeatedly that the city might enforce an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York.
The following sort of accusation is usually reserved for rhetoric from conservatives, but at least this time the paper allowed the possibility that hateful actions like Mamdani's can encourage violence:
On Friday, the tensions erupted into the public, as some community leaders and pro-Israel groups made the striking accusation that the mayor’s public comments, including the video, were partly to blame for acts like the stabbing.
Stack dug into the details of Jewish fear.
Parents fear allowing their children to wear yarmulkes or Stars of David in public, and camp directors are fielding calls from anxious parents asking whether their children will be safe, said Mark Treyger, the chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council, and a longtime critic of the mayor
He even addressed Mamdani's video calling for Netanyahu's arrest, in which New York City's mayor, going far behind trash pickups and subway service, called Israeli's prime minister "the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people."
Several Jewish leaders pointed to Mr. Mamdani’s video, in particular, as creating potential danger for Jewish New Yorkers.
Stack had the self-control to allow Jews to discuss their fears without mentioning Gaza, or balancing the story with “Islamophobia,” or any other distractions.
The attack on Thursday happened on Tisha B’Av, on which observant Jews commemorate the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem by the ancient Babylonians and Romans, and other tragedies throughout Jewish history.
Rabbi Yosie Levine of the Jewish Center said on Friday that the stabbing outside his synagogue on such a mournful holy day made it feel like “the evil we gathered to remember stopped belonging to the past.”
“Jewish life in America is starting to feel like Jewish life in Europe,” he said. “Armed guards, bulletproof glass and the constant fear that yesterday’s rhetoric will turn into today’s assault.”
