Jews Must Start Thinking Clearly about Islam in America

In 2025, many American Jews were shocked by the victory in the New York City mayoral race of Zohran Mamdani, who has made hatred of Israel the cornerstone of his political career, and who has since commemorated the anniversary of September 11 with a condemnation of America. Even more unsettling is the rise of Abdul El-Sayed, arguably an even more radical candidate, surrounded on all sides by connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Israel obsessives. But here an important fact comes into play: according to most estimates, Michigan, where El-Sayed is running for a Senate seat, has nearly twice as many Muslims as Jews. If current trends continue, similar ratios will become increasingly common throughout the country.

To many Americans, and especially to American Jews, the very expression of concern about the growth of the Muslim population smacks of the worst kind of bigotry. Perhaps the only thing more uncomfortable than voicing such concerns is seeing political figures with the views of Mamdani or El-Sayed rising to power. Our own Jewish identity has so often been deployed against us that we now cringe at the thought of trading in a kind of discrimination that disadvantaged our fathers. How should American Jews deal with this predicament? Should our views of immigration shift accordingly? And are such worries really a concession to the selfsame prejudice once turned against Jews?

Let’s begin with some facts. Less than a month after October 7, 2023, a college professor in California approached a pro-Israel rallygoer named Paul Kessler, hit him in the head with a megaphone, and killed him. In October 2024, a twenty-two-year-old shot a Jewish man walking to synagogue in Chicago. In June 2025, a man yelling “free Palestine!” firebombed a gathering in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli hostages, killing an eighty-two-year-old Jewish woman. And in March 2026, a man drove his explosive-laden vehicle into a synagogue preschool in suburban Detroit, where he was stopped by security before he could kill dozens of Jewish children.