Zohran Mamdani celebrates Hanukkah in video with Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani posted a video of himself celebrating Hanukkah with Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin and his family amid scandals of antisemitism among his staff.
The video, posted to Mamdani’s X account on Saturday, featured the mayor-elect joining Patinkin, his wife and his son as they celebrated the first night of Hanukkah. During the video, Mamdani helped Patinkin prepare dinner using a Jewish cookbook and Patinkin’s family recipes.
After the food was prepared, Mamdani joined Patinkin in the Hanukkah prayer, and the actor invited him to light the menorah.
“I wanted to do the Shehecheyanu because that’s about new beginnings,” Patinkin said in the video. “And this is a new beginning that we in this family are incredibly grateful for, the city is grateful for, the world is grateful for.”
“Your mayoral tenure or whatever it’s called has now been blessed,” Patinkin added before the group sat down to eat.
During the dinner, Patinkin remarked on what he admired about Mamdani as a politician.
“I immediately felt that you weren’t so much just a politician, but something far more important to me, which was a human-itician,” Patinkin said. “And your care for equity and equality, for all human beings. And we will teach other cities and then nations and then the whole world hopefully will follow your thing.”
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Patinkin and his wife previously expressed support for Mamdani during the New York City mayoral election, appearing in a promotional video for him on Instagram in October.
“We are going to win this because we have this extraordinary human being who is going to lead our city and eventually, if we’re really thinking, our nation and the world to a better, safer, all-inclusive existence. And that’s what I love about this guy,” Patinkin said.
The Hanukkah video came days after Mamdani’s newly named director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, abruptly resigned after resurfaced social media posts showed she made antisemitic remarks. The position would have put her in charge of City Hall hiring.
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The posts, reportedly made between 2011 and 2012 on a now-deleted X account, included references to “money hungry Jews” and “rich Jewish peeps” and called a Far Rockaway train “the Jew train.” She has expressed regret for the posts and said they’re not indicative of who she is.
Mamdani was pressured during the campaign to back off support for the phrase “globalize the intifada,” but he repeatedly declined to condemn it before ultimately saying he would discourage the phrase.
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