Israel's consul in New York called Mamdani a Nazi. It was the gift the mayor was waiting for.

Ofir Akunis wasn't looking for nuance. In an interview with JTA in his Midtown East office on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Israel's consul general in New York compared Mayor Zohran Mamdani's support for the boycott movement against Israel to the methods of Nazi Germany, called him an "antisemite," and held him directly responsible for attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in the city. Last month, speaking to young community leaders, he was already describing the mayor's "method": "Whatever happens, blame the Jews. Exactly the same method the Third Reich used a century ago."

The starting point, however, is real. On his first day at City Hall, Mamdani rescinded his predecessor Eric Adams's executive order against the BDS movement. He called AIPAC "monsters." He refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, on the grounds that he cannot endorse states that privilege a "religion" — a scruple that didn't stop him from marching in Pakistan's independence day parade while snubbing Israel's. Michael Miller, who led the JCRC for thirty-five years, sums up the difficulty: Akunis has to "deal with a mayor who does not believe in the legitimacy of the country" he represents.

Does that call for the word "Nazi"? Our yardstick is the same as always: the safety of New York's Jews. And by that yardstick, the comparison fails. Not because it wounds the mayor, but because it serves him. His spokesman Sam Raskin was able to answer "offensive, wholly delusional and detached from reality," then point out that the mayor has "repeatedly reaffirmed his commitment to the safety of Jewish New Yorkers." The debate shifted from what Mamdani did to what Akunis said. The executive order, the parade, the "monsters": none of it appears in the rebuttal. The consul handed the mayor the one battlefield where he wins.

The most telling barometer in JTA's reporting isn't a quote but a silence: more than a dozen rabbis and heads of Jewish organizations declined to comment on the consul's strategy. Only Margo Hughes-Robinson, of the liberal New York Jewish Agenda, publicly called the comparison "unproductive" and "offensive to the memory of the Holocaust." The rest keep quiet, boxed in: they can neither disown Israel's representative in the face of a hostile mayor, nor endorse rhetoric they would denounce if it came from anywhere else. Akunis himself took a step back, clarifying that he "is not comparing the horrors of the Holocaust to the current climate." The admission is a verdict in itself.

This escalation must also be read for what it is: a piece of the Israeli campaign. A former minister, a Likud member, appointed by Netanyahu in 2024, Akunis is raising his voice at the precise moment his party is turning Mamdani into a campaign villain ahead of the October 27 vote. The message's addressee isn't only City Hall; it's the Israeli voter. JTA, for its part, frames the affair with "the most right-wing government" in Israel's history: two framings, two campaigns, and New York's Jews caught in the middle.

Hence the reversal that's needed. Imagine a consul who, instead of the Third Reich, listed only deeds: an order rescinded on day one, one parade honored and another snubbed, a Jewish lobby called "monsters." To that, Sam Raskin would have had no answer. The case against Mamdani is heavy enough to do without analogy. New York's Jews need a prosecutor, not a tribune — and they shouldn't have to serve as extras in an election being decided in Jerusalem.