New York Jewry must now thread the needle of history

Just five days before the 87th anniversary of the two-day pogrom on German and Austrian Jews and Jewish communities, known as Kristallnacht (Nov. 9-10, 1938), an eerily familiar feeling is being felt by the American Jewish consciousness following the disturbing election of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor-elect of New York City. This sentiment begs the question: What’s going to be with the Jews?

The answer in 1938 was that the very people who had contributed for so many years to the advancement of Europe’s most enlightened society were no longer welcome. Generations of German and A...