By Lev Tsitrin

“Mamdani is the hope, the powerful hope, of New York youth… At least 4 million New Yorkers revere him. He began as a nobody, and you see what he has become in ten years…. In any case for the youth, for New York of the future, Mamdani is a hero”

I think this describes the preset-day craze over the Moslem Social Democrat who is the front-runner in the New York mayoral election pretty well — but it is not a quote, though I placed it between quotation marks. I simply replaced another name in a real quote from a 1933 interview with a great German scientist Otto Hahn (who would later get a Nobel for discovering nuclear fission — and was by no means a Nazi, offering all the help he could to his Jewish colleagues once Nazis came to power), who was then giving guest lectures at Cornell: “Hitler is the hope, the powerful hope, of German youth… At least 20 million people revere him. He began as a nobody, and you see what he has become in ten years…. In any case for the youth, for the nation of the future, Hitler is a hero, a Führer, a saint… In his daily life he is almost a saint. No alcohol, not even tobacco, no meat, no women. In a word: Hitler is an unequivocal Christ.”

The similarity does not end with the cult-like following enjoyed by the two. They also share views on the Jews, which buttressed two near-identical post-election steps: in Hitler’s case, implementation of “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” which “forbade Jews, non-Aryans, and political opponents from holding positions as teachers, professors, judges, or within the government.” Admittedly, New York mayor’s remit does not extend so far as to allow him to implement such measures nation-wide but, as they say, “every little helps.” In the case of the likely mayor-to-be Mamdani, that “little” is to chase Israel’s premier institution of scientific learning, Technion, out of New York by ending its partnership with Cornell, and closing the Cornell-Technion campus on New York’s Roosevelt Island on the grounds that Technion scientists do research for the IDF (apparently, Mamadani wants Israel to have no defenses against its enemies, so Hamas and Iran could have an easier job destroying it).

While motivations are similar, would the outcomes be similar, too? With the benefit of history’s hindsight, we know that Hitler’s move did not do Nazi Germany much good — in 1942 even Goering complained to Hitler about shortages in technological know-how that resulted from enforcement of racial laws (not to mention that, unbeknownst to both, refugees from Europe proved decisive in giving America nuclear weapons and winning the race with German scientists engaged in the same effort). Would Mamdani’s anti-Israel obsession deny New York (and humanity) some vital benefit of scientific progress in the future?

I don’t have an answer — but it is worth noting both politicians’ same starting point of Jew-hatred — and that the resulting initial steps are rather similar. Is this indicative of Mamdani’s mayoralty’s future anti-Jewish trajectory?

Mamdani seems unstoppable — and Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa acting as spoiler in a three-way race which he has no chance of winning, the mayoralty of New York will most likely fall into the hands of a yet another antisemitic “saviour.” Just as in Germany, science will become his first victim.

And just as with the triumph of that other, German guy almost a century ago, the fault is with the voters, the gullible “youth.” Just as in Germany ninety years ago, the youth of New York is also ignorant of facts, and is also susceptible to demagoguery — antisemitic demagoguery at that. In my frustration, all I can say to our likely next mayor Mamdani and his supporters (admittedly forgetting good manners, and resorting to words no gentleman should admit to even knowing), “sh!t on you, scum!”

Unfortunately, under the circumstances this choice of words seems the only fit one.