700+ Rabbis Demand Mamdani Apology for AIPAC ‘Monsters’ Slur

More than 700 rabbis and cantors across the United States published an open letter Friday demanding that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani apologize for calling AIPAC “monsters” at a campaign rally last week — warning that the rhetoric makes American Jews less safe. The letter, organized by the Jewish Majority advocacy group under AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman, condemned Mamdani for singling out the pro-Israel lobby by name and framing AIPAC's political activity as the enemy of “democracy.” Mamdani made the remarks at a rally supporting the anti-Israel congressional slate that swept New York City's Democratic primaries on June 24. His office has not issued an apology.

• 700+ rabbis and cantors signed the open letter published Friday morning — the largest organized Jewish clerical response to Mamdani's rhetoric since his AIPAC comments last week.
• Mamdani told a rally crowd that “these monsters take many forms,” then explicitly named AIPAC as fearing democracy — language Jewish leaders say echoes antisemitic dual-loyalty tropes.
• The letter was organized by Jewish Majority, an advocacy group led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman, signaling mainstream institutional Jewish leadership is treating this as a crisis.
• Josh Shapiro separately warned that attacks on AIPAC are being used to 'silence certain voters' — a signal that even friendly Democratic governors are alarmed.
• Mamdani's three endorsed congressional candidates all won their primaries, meaning his political operation now controls a bloc of incoming House members aligned with his anti-AIPAC framing.

This is the organized Jewish institutional response to the Mamdani wave — and its form matters as much as its content. Seven hundred rabbis publishing a joint letter is not routine; it signals that the American Jewish religious establishment has concluded Mamdani's rhetoric crossed from political disagreement into threat. The question the 2026 midterms will now answer: whether Democratic Party leadership treats the rabbi letter as a crisis requiring Mamdani to comply, or as a constituency problem to be managed around.

The House Education and Workforce Committee voted Thursday to advance three bills targeting campus antisemitism, including the Protect Jewish Students Act (requires schools to adopt IHRA-aligned antisemitism definitions or lose federal funding), a campus BDS prohibition bill, and the No Antisemitism in Education Act. The markup covered 11 total bills; the three Israel-related measures passed on largely party-line votes, setting up potential floor votes later this year.

• The Protect Jewish Students Act conditions federal funding on schools adopting antisemitism definitions consistent with IHRA — the strongest enforcement mechanism advanced through committee this Congress.
• A companion campus BDS bill would prohibit universities receiving federal funding from participating in boycott campaigns targeting Israel.
• Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) led the markup; the bills now advance to the full House, where the path depends on the SAVE America Act timeline.
• JNS reported the panel's action as specifically targeting Jew-hatred and campus BDS — framing that reflects the bills' dual antisemitism/BDS enforcement structure.

Three simultaneous committee victories on campus antisemitism enforcement represent the most substantive federal legislative progress on ICAN's core issues since the 2019 executive order — and they arrive as Mamdani's movement is generating momentum for the opposing proposition. Whether these bills survive the House floor and Senate is the test; committee passage alone doesn't change campus conditions, but it establishes a legislative floor that future administrations and congresses will have to engage.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, breaking with party leadership and becoming the most prominent national Democrat to back a candidate defined by opposition to Israel and support for the anti-Israel progressive movement. El-Sayed, a former state health director and DSA-aligned progressive, is running against the party establishment's preferred candidates in one of 2026's most consequential Senate races. Van Hollen framed his endorsement as backing the candidate best positioned to mobilize grassroots support.

• Van Hollen's endorsement puts a sitting U.S. senator behind an anti-Israel Senate candidate — elevating El-Sayed from fringe to nationally credible in a single news cycle.
• Bernie Sanders has also backed El-Sayed; the combined Sanders-Van Hollen imprimatur signals a coordinated progressive effort to nationalize the Michigan race as a referendum on Israel.
• El-Sayed's record includes positions hostile to the U.S.-Israel alliance; Van Hollen himself has a history of conditioning military aid and calling for investigations of Israeli military conduct.
• Michigan's Democratic primary electorate includes a significant Arab-American bloc in Dearborn — the same constituency that drove the 'uncommitted' movement in 2024 and shaped the state's political environment.

The Mamdani model — build an anti-Israel coalition, win a Democratic primary, nationalize the template — is now being exported to a Senate race that could determine chamber control. Van Hollen's endorsement is the clearest evidence yet that this is a coordinated national strategy, not an NYC anomaly. Michigan's Senate race is now a direct test of whether the Mamdani coalition can compete at the Senate level outside New York.

Jewish Insider reports that Carmella Charrington — a Brooklyn Democratic district leader elevated with help from two DSA-aligned elected officials — posted to Instagram declaring Henry Ford's The International Jew as “the truth,” endorsing a notorious antisemitic conspiracy text beloved by Adolf Hitler. When reached for comment, Charrington defended the post and told JI to “get your rabbi.” She ran on the same insurgent electoral slate as candidates backed by the Mamdani political operation, and is linked to a PAC run by Mark Hanna — treasurer of American Priorities PAC, which works to counter AIPAC and elect anti-Israel candidates.

• Carmella Charrington, a newly-elevated Brooklyn Democratic district leader, posted Henry Ford's 'The International Jew' to Instagram and described it as 'the truth.'
• The post endorses a text that Hitler cited directly — placing Charrington in promotion of explicitly Nazi-adjacent antisemitic ideology.
• Charrington was elevated with the backing of DSA-aligned officials and ran on the same insurgent slate connected to the Mamdani political operation that swept June 24 primaries.
• Her network includes Mark Hanna, treasurer of American Priorities PAC — a committee built to counter AIPAC influence and boost anti-Israel candidates.

This is not a fringe actor — this is what the inside of the Mamdani coalition looks like at the party infrastructure level. Charrington's promotion of Hitler's source material, while being elevated by DSA officials and connected to an AIPAC-counter PAC, demonstrates that the antisemitism documented at the rhetorical level (Mamdani's 'monsters') extends into the organizational base of the incoming Democratic anti-Israel bloc.