New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent Sukkos making a series of high-profile appearances in Orthodox Jewish communities across Brooklyn, visiting sukkahs in Crown Heights and Williamsburg and meeting with prominent Chabad and Satmar figures as his administration continued its outreach to Jewish New Yorkers.

Mamdani’s Sukkos rounds began Tuesday night in Crown Heights, where he visited the sukkah of Devorah Halberstam, the longtime Jewish communal activist whose son Ari Halberstam was murdered in the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge terror attack.

Halberstam has for years hosted elected officials, law-enforcement leaders and community figures during Sukkos, and Mamdani’s appearance placed him alongside a number of other prominent New York officials and Jewish communal personalities.

Among those present were Gov. Kathy Hochul, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and City Council Speaker Julie Menin.

The visit came shortly after Mamdani’s administration unveiled a citywide strategy aimed at combating antisemitism, adding particular significance to his appearance in one of New York’s most prominent Jewish neighborhoods.

Mamdani then visited the sukkah of R’ Yaacov Behrman, a Crown Heights community activist and Chabad media liaison.

Behrman later emphasized that he had hosted Mamdani in a personal capacity and not on behalf of Chabad as an institution.

“He was in the neighborhood for an event, and my family and I hosted him afterward in our sukkah to share some of the beauty and meaning of the holiday,” Behrman said.

According to Behrman, the conversation focused on Sukkos, family and the meaning of the sukkah. His children also explained the concept of the ushpizin to the mayor.

“We blessed the mayor that he should be a uniter and bring New Yorkers together,” Behrman said.

Mamdani also visited the sukkah of Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller and one of Mamdani’s most visible Jewish political allies.

The mayor’s Crown Heights appearances drew mixed reactions. Some people welcomed him, while others heckled him and accused him of antisemitism, reflecting the deep divisions that remain within the Jewish community over his positions and rhetoric concerning Israel.

A day later, on Wednesday, Mamdani traveled to Williamsburg, where he visited the sukkah of R’ Saul Perelstein and met with leaders associated with the Satmar community’s Reb Zalman Leib faction.

Mamdani was greeted there by United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn President R’ David Niederman.

Also participating were longtime community figure R’ Abe Friedman, Williamsburg Shomrim coordinator Yanky Itzkowitz, and representatives of local mosdos and communal organizations.

The Williamsburg meeting focused on issues affecting local residents and the broader Orthodox Jewish community, continuing a relationship Mamdani has cultivated with several Satmar leaders over the course of his rise in city politics.

Earlier in the week, he also participated in a Sukkos food-distribution event with R’ Shlomo Nisanov, a leader in Queens’ Bukharian Jewish community.

{Matzav.com}