Many in the crowd were alarmed by the surging popularity of Zohran Mamdani, but still skeptical that a staunchly anti-Israel lawmaker could be elected in the city with the world’s largest Jewish community outside of Israel.

Here’s the rub, though; there’s an equal, or greater, number of Muslims in NYC compared to Jews. Furthermore, the NYC Jewish population isn’t the same as it was mid-twentieth century. The relatively secular Ashkenazi, Western European liberal/reform/conservative Jews (FYI, I’m using those terms in the context of Jewish sects, not the political ones) have been largely displaced by Eastern European orthodox and Hasidic Jews. They’re a bit mixed on Israel, but more importantly they tend to be insular and stick to their enclaves. Which means that unless the district in question contains said enclaves, the Jewish vote is unlikely to be super significant. Whereas the Muslim population is more disbursed across the city.

So while the Zionist $$$ might still be big, when it comes to the actual voter base in NYC, the Zionists are making their assumptions off an outdated model.