NEW YORK (RNS) — After the vote was in and Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old state assemblyman, had made history in becoming America’s largest city’s first Muslim mayor-elect, the comparisons to another seemingly out-of-nowhere political star began.
“Just like Barack Obama, who was an empowerment to the Black community, Zohran is an empowerment to the Muslim community,” said Juhaib Choudhury, the president of the Muslim Community Forum, at Mamdani’s election party on Tuesday (Nov. 4).
But Mamdani, who won 50.4% of the vote to defeat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican activist Curtis Sliwa, didn’t only bring Muslims to the polls to vote for him. Like Obama, Mamdani fashioned a broad coalition to achieve a generational turnover, one that, as Mamdani said from the stage of the Brooklyn Paramount, “toppled a political dynasty.”
He did it with the help of a broad range of progressive faith groups, including anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, both pivotal in organizing Jewish supporters. Rabbi Jason Klein, of the progressive Beit Simchat Torah congregation in Manhattan, said Mamdani’s election offers an opportunity for New York’s diverse communities to come together and seek to understand one another.
“I’m feeling optimistic about the possibilities of our city, for all the commun …