In this year’s high-stakes New York City mayoral race, one candidate has a proven history of being a friend and protector of the city’s vulnerable Jewish community: Curtis Sliwa. His volunteer neighborhood watch group, the Guardian Angels, have stood side by side with Shomrim and Shmira patrols throughout the five boroughs through some of the community’s greatest crises, including the Mighty Tomahawk gang violence of the 1970s, the Crown Heights riots of the 1990s, and the Black-on-Jewish hate crimes of 2019.
In 2021, he ran an impressive campaign against then-mayoral Democratic nominee, now-incumbent mayor Eric Adams, taking nearly a third of the vote in the historically deep-blue city. This year, the challenge is even greater as a Democratic socialist leads the pack, with Sliwa and three other candidates battling amongst themselves to be his challenger. Despite Zohran Mamdani’s outspoken criticism of Israel, he’s managed to win the support of many of the city’s young Jews.
Sliwa met up with The Jewish Press to discuss this troubling phenomenon and to remind the Jewish community why he is their best choice in November.
The Jewish Press: You are running as the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City, but for decades the city and its 1.1 million Jews have known you as the founder of the Guardian Angels. 2019 was one of the most violent years on record as an outbreak of Black-on-Jewish crime plagued the city. How did your group get involved with protecting the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Williamsburg, and Boro Park?
Curtis Sliwa: It all started in Crown Heights in 2019 when some emotionally disturbed Black guy ran into the basement of 770 Eastern Parkway [the Lubavitch movement’s main shul] and threatened to kill everyone; he was never caught. Obviously, the incident greatly upset the leaders of the Lubavitch community, so they summoned then-Mayor Bill De Blasio, who then gave a speech on a Sunday morning in which he said: “The problems that America faces are White separatism and White extremism.” So, the rabbis looked at one another, and they called me before the next Shabbos, saying, “Curtis, the mayor is oblivious to what’s happening here. Jews are being attacked, mainly by emotionally disturbed African-Americans, and he doesn’t seem to get it.” White extremism was basically the national Democrat talking point at that time. So, I said, “Well, I’ll send a contingent of the Guardian Angels to Crown Heights,” as we had done many years before, during the Crown Heights riots.
While your organization has had an amazing impact on Jewish life in New York City, as a young man the Jewish community had a defining impact on your life as well. Tell us what happened.
The high school I went to was called Brooklyn Preparatory School, which is now Medgar Evers College. I would take the B17 bus to Canarsie and I would walk along Eastern Parkway and I saw the Maccabee patrols that the Lubavitch had organized, because they were under attack at that time by gangs who were not happy they were there. I had my Brooklyn Prep uniform on and I was listening to the Maccabees discuss the Mighty Tomahawk gangs that were coming into the neighborhood to steal the Jews’ black hats and knock men down – and that’s when I heard for the first time the phrase hop sum. This was before cell phones, so men would scream out “Hop sum!,” drop everything, run into the streets, and pursue the suspects who would commit violent acts or violate the Jews there. They were very well-organized and I remember seeing on the other side of the street the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, who was the nemesis of the Lubavitchers, and there was a lot of tension. That was the very first citizen patrol I ever witnessed and [it] became my motivation for starting the Guardian Angels.
You started the Guardian Angels in 1979 – at the time you were a night manager at a McDonald’s. Today the Guardian Angels are in 130 cities and 14 countries. Tell us about your first patrols for the Jewish community during the Crown Heights riots.
Interestingly, we just passed the anniversary of the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum [a Chasidic student visiting from Australia] at the hands of Lemrick Nelson during the three days of rioting that took place on the corner of Kingston Avenue and President Street. It was a horrific scene, and at the time David Dinkins was the mayor and he chose to do nothing.
The Crown Heights riots were in 1991; there were fires in the streets and Dinkins instructed the police to stand down. So, I contacted the rest of the Guardian Angels and we had a truck at that time called the Avalanche and when we drove we couldn’t believe it – as we came to the corner of Kingston and President Street, it was a full-on riot. You had these young black men, some of them led by Al Sharpton, and they were rampaging through the streets, so we mobilized.
We stood on that corner, and sometimes the young boys would come down from 770 Eastern Parkway and they would say, “Can you go this way on Buffalo or Rochester Avenues?” which were newer areas the Lubavitch were moving into and they were under physical attack. So we’d back the Avalanche into the home, and we would take the families out, and then we’d have to fight our way through the crowd. It got that perilous – with still no response from the police. As a result of us staying 30 days and 30 nights, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Schneerson honored all the Guardian Angels on a Sunday afternoon; when he made his presentation, he gave us each a “Rebbe dollar,” and he gave me two. There’s actually a video of when I survived an assassination attempt, years later in 1992, by the Gottis and Gambinos – the only thing that wasn’t splattered with blood in my wallet was the Rebbe dollars. Everything else was covered in my blood.
Activist Rabbi Meir Kahane was once the editor of The Jewish Press. What was your association and connection to him and the Jewish Defense League (JDL)?
I never met Meir Kahane. I was 14 and in high school when I first met a group of JDL members in 1968, while patrolling Church Ave in East Flatbush because of attacks against Jews and Jewish stores. I was living in Canarsie at the time. I heard about the JDL from my then radio partner at WABC, Ron Kuby, who had left Cleveland as a young adult and joined the JDL in New York City. He repeated the phrase that attracted him to Kahane: “Every Jew a .22.” Years later, he would go on to work as an attorney with William Kunstler [who represented in trial] El Sayyid Nosair, who killed Kahane in the hotel ballroom in New York City.
I also spoke with Dov Hikind about his involvement with the JDL as a young adult. I learned quite a bit from Dov.
The other candidates have acknowledged something must be done to end the growing trend towards antisemitism. What’s your strategy on what must be done to combat this?
The Jewish community has to organize itself. The gentile community has a history of promising the Jews they are going to be there when you need them, and then suddenly the Jews find themselves helped by no one. So that’s what I’ve constantly promoted to the Jewish community. For instance, we are probably now at the highest level of antisemitism we’ve experienced in our lifetime. Let’s look at our public school system, the New York [City] Department of Education has a 41-billion-dollar bloated budget, and there’s no mandatory curriculum about the dangers of antisemitism. But you’ve got to teach children while they’re young. When Andrew Cuomo was governor of New York, he could have made it mandatory, but he didn’t do it. So they keep saying “We’re going to fight antisemitism,” but antisemitism starts in the home.
Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani has highly criticized Israel’s war in Gaza and has stated he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit New York City. Do you believe he is antisemitic?
It’s obvious he wants his whole campaign to be about Bibi and Israel, because anything he can do to not talk about local issues is a good day for Zohran Mamdani. But Jews have some part in this unbelievable hysteria in which they are running around like Chicken Little and screaming that the sky is falling because some of the polls are very disturbing in terms of how many of the younger Jewish people are in a trance with Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders.
Indeed, the numbers are troubling. A Newsweek survey found that Mamdani has a 17-point lead over Cuomo – who is currently in second place – amongst Jewish voters. Another poll shows he has up to 37% of the Jewish vote. Is Mamdani polling as well with Muslims as he is with Jews?
There are Muslims who truly have nothing in common with Mamdani, and yet…the attacks made on his religion and his culture [have] caused them to start rallying around him. There have been Republicans in Congress who have said publicly the most vile things about Muslims – calling them towel-heads, lying with sheep – horrific things. [Turning Point founder] Charlie Kirk asked, “Why is Mamdani eating with his hands in one of the videos?” But culturally there are people who eat with their hands! Why are you attacking his religion and his culture? You are literally driving people to his cause. They may not share his politics or his beliefs, but if you attack someone for their religion, you cause others to rally around him, even though they may not agree with his politics – which they don’t.
Ideally there should be only two candidates at this point in the race. However, no one expects Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor, to not run for a second term, even though he’s currently polling in the single digits. On the other hand, why do you think Andrew Cuomo is staying in the race?
This is Cuomo’s last hoorah. He escaped Albany where he was going to be impeached. So now he wants to take advantage of the weakness of Adams. If Adams had been a halfway decent mayor, it would have been the incumbent Eric Adams running against Sliwa the Republican, Round 2. No one would ever have known who Mamdani was. But because of the failure of Eric Adams, he can’t even get into the double digits. That why Cuomo came in, and he approached the Jewish community first and raised a lot of money, but when he was supposed to deliver, instead he hung out in the Hamptons and ran a dismal campaign and lost. Then he goes to the Hampton Synagogue and he blames the Jews!
There is concern among many in the Chasidic and ultra-Orthodox community about the remarks you made in 2018. What was the reason and the context behind the statements you were reported as saying, such as that certain segments of Orthodox Jews were trying to “take over your community” and that “they do not vote the way normal Americans vote.” Were these quotes accurate, and if so, what was your intention in making these comments?
In 2018, I was the chairman of the New York State Reform Party. We got into many arguments with Republicans and Democrats running against our candidates in Rockland County and Orange County. They were touting the fact that they had secured the bloc vote from certain Orthodox groups who lived in the area. It was part of a back-and-forth political argument and discussion.
I have since apologized for the remarks in many forums and regularly on the Zev Brenner Talkline Communication radio program, where I addressed these remarks with his listeners and different rabbis.
Unlike Cuomo, who never spoke publicly with apologies to the Orthodox community for his crackdown against them during the pandemic and lockdown in 2020. He did it privately during the Democratic primary. Nor Eric Adams, who was a Farrakhan supporter and urged Dinkins to welcome him to speak in Madison Square Garden. To his credit, Dinkins said no.
Cuomo and Adams have never publicly apologized for their differences in the past with the Jewish community. But neither they nor I are antisemites.
And how do you feel about these remarks seven years later?
Over seven years, I have had a chance to talk about it, reflect on it, and apologize publicly.
In the past, you’ve criticized yeshivas and accused them of failing to provide a proper education. Do you still stand by that view – and if so, what would you do about it as mayor?
I have visited many religious schools in the Jewish community over the years. In Crown Heights, Boro Park, Midwood, Williamsburg, and Five Towns. My two youngest sons went to a Jewish preschool. They were all different experiences. They emphasized the importance of education and the value of studying. Not just religion, but with other subject matter.
At times in Williamsburg, as some young religious boys would approach me, they seemed unable to speak or understand English. The basics must be taught to all children. Reading and writing in English. Arithmetic and, of course, what the yeshivas all teach: respect. As mayor, I know most yeshivas follow the rules that all schools in New York State and New York City follow. Those that don’t or refuse should be looked at. As Mayor, I will try to resolve this issue once and for all, unlike all previous mayors who kicked the issue to another “new” mayor.
