By Rabbi Shay Tahan

A Jewish neighborhood.

A controversial and deeply divisive mayor.

A crowd of admirers—and one woman standing alone in protest.

When Mayor Mamdani walked into Eichler’s in Boro Park, he was greeted not with hostility, but with smiles, handshakes, cheers, gifts, and admiration. Members of the Jewish community gathered around him, eager to welcome the city’s newly elected mayor. For a moment, the scene seemed to send a powerful message: Boro Park was ready to embrace Mamdani.

But then there was the woman who refused to join the celebration.

Standing amid the crowd, she protested against the mayor and the spectacle unfolding around her. While others saw an opportunity to welcome the city’s new leader and establish a relationship with him, she saw something very different: an unacceptable display of admiration for a politician whose positions have raised profound concerns among many Jews.

Who is right?

Is greeting Mayor Mamdani simply smart politics and responsible community relations? Can a Jewish community maintain cordial relations with a mayor while firmly rejecting positions it considers dangerous or objectionable? And where is the line between diplomacy and endorsement?

To understand where the proper balance lies, we must turn to the Torah and the teachings of Chazal.

The Torah presents several striking examples of Jews showing honor and deference to people in positions of power. Perhaps the most famous is Yaakov Avinu’s encounter with Eisav.

Eisav was no ordinary political adversary. He was Yaakov’s brother who harbored hatred toward him and came toward him with four hundred men. Yet when Yaakov encountered Eisav, the Torah tells us that Yaakov bowed before Eisav seven times. He also sent him an enormous gift and addressed him respectfully. Yaakov’s conduct certainly cannot be understood as an endorsement of Eisav’s values. Eisav represented a worldview fundamentally opposed to that of Yaakov and his descendants. Nevertheless, Yaakov understood that there are circumstances in which showing respect and seeking peace with a powerful individual is appropriate. Perhaps this is how we can understand the warm welcome given by many members of our community to Mayor Mamdani. Their greeting does not necessarily mean that they endorse his political positions or worldview. Perhaps they were demonstrating respect toward a powerful political figure while seeking to establish a productive relationship with the person who now holds authority over New York City.

The Torah provides another remarkable example in the way Yaakov Avinu interacted with Pharaoh.

Pharaoh was not merely a political leader with whom the Jewish people happened to disagree. He was the ruler who enslaved Bnei Yisrael and decreed that their male children be thrown into the Nile. Yet when Yaakov stood before Pharaoh, the Torah tells us: “And Yaakov blessed Pharaoh.”

This is remarkable. Yaakov stood before the ruler of Egypt, a king whose government would eventually enslave his descendants, and yet he did not treat him with contempt. He was able to maintain his own beliefs and principles while simultaneously showing respect to the king.

The lesson is important: respecting a ruler does not necessarily mean respecting everything the ruler believes or does. One can recognize the authority of an office, maintain a relationship with the person occupying it, and speak respectfully while firmly opposing his policies.

But the Torah and Chazal also present the opposite approach.

In the story of Purim, Mordechai finds himself in a very different situation. When Haman leads him through the streets of the city on the king’s horse, Mordechai does not respond with the deference one might expect toward the king’s representative. When Haman helps Mordechai mount the horse, Mordechai kicks him with his foot before climbing onto the horse.

Rather than showing Haman the honor ordinarily accorded to a representative of the king, Mordechai treated him with open contempt. His conduct reflected a deliberate refusal to honor Haman, despite the authority he wielded.

Chazal themselves address this very tension. The Gemara in Megillah (6b) teaches: “.אם ראית רשע שהשעה משחקת לו — אל תתגרה בו” “If you see a wicked person whose hour is smiling upon him, do not provoke him.” The Gemara explains that when a wicked person is enjoying success and power, his position is particularly formidable. The Gemara then discusses the apparent contradiction between this teaching and the statement that it is permissible to provoke the wicked in this world, offering several distinctions. One of the conclusions is: “When his hour is smiling upon him, it is different.”

Chazal are therefore recognizing an important principle: the proper response to a problematic or even wicked individual may depend not only upon who he is, but also upon the circumstances and the degree of power he currently possesses.

Accordingly, since the mayor appears to have “the hour smiling upon him” and currently holds considerable political power, there may be a strong argument for greeting him warmly rather than provoking him. From the perspective of the Gemara in Megillah, diplomacy and restraint may therefore be the wiser course.

But there is an important limit to this approach.

In Sotah (41b), the Gemara relates the famous incident involving King Agrippas during the mitzvah of Hakhel. Agrippas stood before the people and read the Torah. When he reached the words — “You may not appoint over yourself a foreigner” — he began to cry, because of his lineage.

Seeing the king’s distress, the people called out to him — “You are our brother, you are our brother.”

The Gemara then makes a shocking statement: “At that moment, Israel became deserving of destruction because they flattered Agrippas.” The Gemara is not teaching that every expression of respect toward a king is forbidden. The problem was that the people crossed the line from legitimate respect into חנופה. They told Agrippas something that was not true simply to make him feel better. This distinction is crucial. There is a difference between respecting a person’s position and flattering the person himself. There is a difference between diplomacy and admiration, and between maintaining a relationship with a powerful leader and publicly identifying ourselves with everything he represents. Let’s go a step further: In recent years, we have witnessed two radically different approaches within the Jewish world.

On one side are those who believe that Jews must avoid unnecessary confrontation with powerful figures and nations. Some groups, most notably Neturei Karta, have even gone so far as to embrace or publicly engage with some of Israel’s most bitter enemies. Their approach is based on the belief that confrontation and political power do not necessarily protect the Jewish people, and that accommodation and opposition to confrontation may offer a safer path. Others have taken almost the exact opposite approach.

They believe that after nearly two thousand years of exile, the Jewish people have entered a fundamentally different stage of history. We are no longer a powerless minority dependent upon the goodwill of foreign rulers. Hashem has granted us a Jewish state, political influence, military strength, and a renewed sense of national identity.

Their message is therefore very different: We should no longer bow our heads before the nations. We should stand tall as Jews and express our Jewish identity and pride openly. Perhaps the difference lies in how we understand the era in which we are living. There are two fundamentally different understandings of our present situation, and each naturally produces a very different approach.

Those who believe that we remain fully in exile—even while living in the Land of Israel—will naturally view our relationship with the nations through the lens of galut. Throughout the generations, Jews lived under foreign rulers and understood the importance of maintaining peaceful relations with those who held power. Chazal taught us to respect government authority, to avoid unnecessary confrontation, and to conduct ourselves wisely before the nations.

In galut, the Jew often had little choice but to recognize the power of the ruler standing before him.

But there are others who believe that we are living in the final stages of the geulah. They see the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the establishment of Jewish sovereignty, and the renewed strength and confidence of the Jewish people as signs that we are no longer living in the same historical reality that defined Jewish life for centuries. If that is indeed the reality of our times, perhaps the Jewish response should also be different.

Perhaps we can finally raise our heads. Perhaps we can express Jewish pride publicly without constantly worrying about how the nations will react.

Perhaps we can protest political leaders without feeling that we might lose their approval.

And perhaps we can say clearly: We will work with you when necessary, but we will not pretend to admire what we believe is wrong. Perhaps the answer determines how we should interpret what happened at Eichler’s. There is nothing inherently wrong with meeting a mayor. There is nothing wrong with speaking to him, working with him, or even welcoming him into our community. Political relationships are necessary, and a responsible Jewish community must maintain relationships with those who govern it. But we must be careful.

A handshake is one thing. A public celebration is another.

Respect for an office is one thing. Admiration for a political worldview is another. Diplomacy is one thing. Flattery is another. And perhaps the woman who stood alone in protest was raising the question that the rest of us need to ask: When we welcome a powerful political leader into our community, are we simply being diplomatic—or are we sending a message that we have embraced him and what he represents?

That is the line we must learn to recognize in my opinion.