We Ignored Hitler’s Words. Will We Ignore Mamdani’s?

The oldest hatred returns in modern language — and this time, it’s wrapped in law, politics, and polite applause.

I am an artist. I am a Jew. I am the son of Yaacov Agam, one of Israel’s greatest living artists and a pioneer of kinetic and abstract art. I’ve spent my life between New York and Paris, devoted to creativity, dialogue, and truth. I do not write these words lightly. But I also refuse to remain silent while hatred is being repackaged as justice — and legitimized by an elected official in the state of New York.

Zohran Mamdani is not just another progressive voice. He is actively leading a political movement whose foundation is hostility toward Israel and, by extension, toward Jewish identity itself. This is not debate. This is not dissent. This is ideological warfare — calculated, relentless, and increasingly normalized.

For over a decade, Mamdani has backed the BDS movement. Not as a footnote, but as a mission. He promotes the economic strangulation of the only Jewish state. He introduced a bill designed to strip Jewish nonprofits of their tax-exempt status simply for supporting fellow Jews in Israel. And when “Globalize the Intifada” echoed through protests — a slogan calling for a global anti-Israel uprising — he didn’t condemn it. He defended it.

Let’s not sugarcoat what this means. This is a campaign to erase the Jewish state. It’s not about criticism — it’s about destruction. Mamdani’s rhetoric isolates Jews who support Israel, paints them as immoral, and seeks to punish them in law and culture. He cloaks this in language about human rights, but the target is always the same.

We have heard this kind of language before.

In 1930s Germany, Adolf Hitler began his rise with slogans, economic boycotts, and carefully crafted moral narratives. Jews, he claimed, were corrupting the soul of the nation, undermining peace and justice. He used legal tools. He mobilized the press. He built a coalition around fear and fantasy — and most people, at first, thought it would fade.

It didn’t.

Hitler didn’t invent antisemitism. He legitimized it. He gave it structure. He mainstreamed it. And by the time people understood the stakes, the machinery was already running.

Mamdani is not Hitler. But he is using the same ideological fuel: scapegoating Jews, targeting their institutions, punishing solidarity — and dressing it all in utopian language.

That’s how it always begins. Slowly. Respectably. With applause.

What frightens me most is not just what Mamdani says — it’s how few people are pushing back. Too many remain silent. Too many say, “It’s complicated.” It’s not. There is nothing complicated about singling out one people, one state, one community for total condemnation.

When you do that to Jews, it has a name. And we are not going to pretend we don’t recognize it.

I am not a politician. I am not an extremist. I am a man who believes in art, in truth, in memory. And I have learned that when antisemitism shows up wearing new clothes, you must still call it by its name — and you must not wait.

New York is home to over one million Jews. If we cannot stand up here, then we are truly lost.

We ignored Hitler’s words once. We are hearing new ones now. Different voice. Same structure. Same danger.

We must not ignore it again.

Ron Agam is a Miami-based artist and writer. His work explores perception, identity, and freedom. He is the son of Israeli artist Yaacov Agam.