Last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed Rabbi Miriam Grossman as a “faith liaison” to the Jewish community within his new Office of Mass Engagement. According to a posting for the job, the faith liaison position is meant to “represent the Mayor in relation to a specific faith community,” while serving “as the direct link between their community, the Mayor, his administration, and City agencies.” The selection of Grossman, a controversial activist affiliated with Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, is revealing.
Grossman has a long resume of progressive activism that reflects leftist pieties more than any distinctly Jewish tradition. Before attending rabbinical school, Grossman served as a fellow at SVARA, which describes itself as a “traditionally radical Yeshiva [Jewish school]” dedicated to empowering “queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study.” It considers an “upgraded” Jewish law essential to enacting “change in our time.” After SVARA, Grossman attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC). The school professes a progressive political agenda far more than traditional Jewish law.
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At RRC, Grossman participated in the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. In an interview with NPR, she explained that she had once considered herself a Zionist but began reconsidering those beliefs after working with the Lakota tribe at Standing Rock “to protect sacred sites.” There, she recalled, a Native American friend drew an explicit parallel between supposed indigenous dispossession from settler-colonialism in America and the Palestinian cause, explaining to her that “when I look to the Palestinian people . . . I see my own story.”
Grossman’s career after RRC exemplifies progressive Jewish activism, closely linking anti-Zionism with broader criticism of the United States. She served as rabbi of Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn, a congregation committed “to ending structural racism and becoming an antiracist congregation.” Its policies and guidelines include protocols for interacting with ICE and discouraging calls to the NYPD in such circumstances.
As anti-Zionism has become a greater obsession of the Left, Grossman has followed suit. She is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a radical group that describes Zionism as a form of white supremacy and blamed Israel for the October 7 massacre. The Rabbinical Council for JVP likens Israel’s self-defense against Hamas to the Holocaust, carried out “with weapons provided by the United States.”
Grossman appears to agree with JVP’s stance. On October 16, 2023, Grossman spoke at a DSA-led protest in Brooklyn, which called for a ceasefire to a war that Hamas began and a stop to the “genocide.” Seven months earlier, she led a protest outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s home demanding an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. In 2024, she signed a New York City DSA petition calling again for a ceasefire in Gaza. She is also affiliated with Rabbis For Ceasefire, which seeks the “dismantling of Jewish supremacy in policy and rhetoric.”
Grossman’s connection to Mamdani isn’t new. During New York City’s mayoral race, she coauthored an article endorsing him as an avatar of Jewish values, infusing Yiddish terminology in a strained attempt to appear authentically Jewish. She was also featured in the infamous “Rabbis for Zohran” advertisement alongside transgender activist Abby Stein, who was kicked out of a White House event in 2024 after yelling about a Gaza ceasefire during Jill Biden’s speech.
Grossman’s activism harmonizes neatly with Mamdani’s progressive politics. In April 2025, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice—for which Grossman serves as a member-leader—held a “Seder in the Streets” protest against Donald Trump’s election. The “seder,” marking the Jewish exodus from Egypt, was held outside the traditional date of Passover and likened Trump to the biblical Pharaoh, who enslaved the Jewish people and cast their children into the Nile. Mamdani made an appearance.
At this year’s version of the event, which Mamdani also attended, the political content was updated to reflect anti-ICE ideology. Several protesters were arrested for a “sit in” at the Palantir offices. Grossman said that “in honor of the Jewish holiday of liberation, it feels like a mitzvah, a sacred obligation, to sit here and refuse to leave until Palantir ends its collusion and complicity with ICE’s terror campaign.”
Jews continue to top the list of victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. At a time of heightened fear among them, Mamdani chose as a taxpayer-funded “faith liaison” someone whose background makes her a dubious choice to serve as a genuine advocate for the community. Grossman makes a far better fit as an extension of the mayor’s progressive, anti-American political agenda.