New York City's most famous rabbi is suddenly silent.
While the Jewish state’s enemies speak from her own city, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl has lost the moral voice she once demanded from American Jews.
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This is a guest essay by Daniel Mael, host of the “Mael Time” podcast.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl has become one of American Judaism’s most visible moral preachers.
As senior rabbi of Central Synagogue — an institution that prides itself on conscience as much as congregation — she has spent years warning of the dangers of political complacency. She has marched, sermonized, and issued declarations of principle. She tells her flock that moral courage is Judaism’s highest calling.
Yet when faced with a real test — Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York who calls Israel an apartheid state, glorifies “resistance,” and refuses to condemn calls to “Globalize the Intifada” — Buchdahl, the self-proclaimed voice of conscience, falls silent.
In a recent letter to her congregation, Buchdahl explained that she would not address Mamdani’s rhetoric because “as a religious institution, Central Synagogue does not endorse candidates or take sides in political races.” The synagogue, she wrote, “is committed to being a spiritual home for Jews across the political spectrum.” It sounds noble. It isn’t. Neutrality is a virtue only when truth is uncertain. When a politician seeking the city’s highest office echoes the language of Israel’s enemies, neutrality becomes moral failure.
The contrast with Buchdahl’s long record of public agitation could not be starker. In September 2023, she prepared to join protests outside the United Nations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul. Some congregants warned that it would “embolden Israel’s enemies.” Her response was defiant: “I didn’t not show up because people were mad about it, because that is not how I roll.” The only reason she missed the rally, she admitted, was that she “tested positive for COVID-19” the night before.
That same week, she delivered one of the most widely discussed sermons of her career. “This year,” she declared, “Israel elected the most Right-wing, ultra-religious government in its history. It quickly moved to weaken the independence of the judiciary and steamroll the rights of minorities. In a matter of months, this new government has taken actions that threaten to turn Israel into an authoritarian, theocratic state that very few American Jews will be able to support.”
Her Rosh Hashanah sermon was framed as a call to arms. “We are reclaiming the flag,” she told her congregation, “we are reclaiming the Declaration of Independence, we are reclaiming this language around Jewish values. … We shouldn’t walk away from Israel.” She described the sermon as an act of teshuvah (repentance) for American Jews who had been, in her words, “radically silent.”
Then came her most striking reflection: “I woke up one morning,” she recalled, “and thought to myself, ‘You are a rabbi in this moment, you have to talk about Israel.’ Up until this point, American Jews have been radically silent in the face of all that’s going on. It’s like, where the hell are American Jews right now?”
That question now belongs to her. Where is Angela Buchdahl right now, as Zohran Mamdani spreads the same falsehoods she once vowed to confront? Where is her moral urgency as he brands Israel an apartheid state, praises those who attack it, and pledges to sever ties with the Jewish homeland? Where is the “rabbi in this moment” when the moment is her own city?
When condemnation carries no social risk, Buchdahl is fearless. When it might offend some of her peers, she retreats. Against the Israeli Right, she is bold. Against the American Left, she is mute. The rabbi who once called silence a sin has found comfort in it.
This is not about politics; it is about integrity. A leader who can accuse Israel’s elected government of authoritarianism should be able to denounce a mayoral candidate who perniciously spreads antisemitic lies and blood libels. The refusal to do so reveals the source of her courage: applause, not conviction.
Buchdahl’s defenders insist that opposing Mamdani would politicize her pulpit. But she politicized it long ago. Central Synagogue’s clergy have used their pulpits to denounce ICE raids, to condemn “white supremacy in policing,” to praise Black Lives Matter, and to promote progressive legislation.
Central Synagogue’s Director of Social Justice Organizing, Rabbi Hilly Haber, once described standing “in a federal immigration court as armed and masked ICE agents quietly began to line the hallways,” calling immigration enforcement “a cruel and pervasive disregard for human life” and urging congregants to “support progressive legislation such as the New York for All Act.”
At many Reform synagogues, such remarks would barely raise an eyebrow. At Central Synagogue, they expose a double standard. When Assemblyman Mamdani accused Israel of genocide and apartheid and said he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested upon entering New York City, Buchdahl said nothing, except to remind congregants that the synagogue “does not endorse or oppose political candidates.” The rule was suddenly sacred when the target stood on the political Left.
That rule did not seem to apply when Buchdahl herself signed public political petitions. She is listed among the signatories of T’ruah and J Street’s “Jewish Clergy Letter Against Anti-BDS Legislation,” which urged lawmakers to “defend the free speech of all Americans by opposing legislation penalizing supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.” She also joined T’ruah’s 2022 letter to the Israeli ambassador — “250+ Rabbis and Cantors to the Israeli Ambassador: Stop Settler Violence” — which accused Israeli settlers of “frequent and violent attacks on Palestinians” and described certain incidents as “a pogrom.” Both letters were signed “Rabbi Angela Buchdahl – New York, NY.”
Meanwhile, Central Synagogue’s own “Policy on Institutional Voice,” adopted August 20, 2025, states unequivocally: “We do not endorse candidates or parties. Our role is not to enter political campaigns or to endorse or speak out against candidates, but to provide moral and spiritual clarity on important public issues.” It warns that “too many exceptions potentially undermine our commitment to those values and may alienate members across the political spectrum.”
That principle has never been applied evenly. Central Synagogue’s clergy have repeatedly used their pulpits to advance causes aligned with the political Left — yet invoke neutrality only when progressive politicians attack Israel or the Jewish People. The congregation that once called immigration enforcement “a cruel and pervasive disregard for human life” now insists that even acknowledging an anti-Israel mayoral candidate would breach its mission.
This is not integrity; it is a revolving-door morality. Buchdahl has written to Congress about free-speech law, signed letters to the Israeli government about settlement policy, and presided over sermons that equate partisan activism with Jewish faith. To claim, after all that, that Central cannot “endorse or oppose” a political candidate is to mistake cowardice for principle.
Buchdahl once said that protesting against Netanyahu was “a kind of return to our Israeli brothers and sisters.” But solidarity is not a slogan. It means standing with those brothers and sisters when they are maligned by those who share your politics. Silence before Mamdani’s hatred is not a return; it is retreat.
If Rabbi Buchdahl truly believes in the moral power of Judaism, she should use it now. She should name, clearly and publicly, the danger of a would-be mayor who defames the Jewish state and threatens Jewish safety in New York City. Anything less is unacceptable.
Her sermons once demanded that American Jews stop being silent. Now they serve as an epitaph to her own.
I’m just dumbfounded at some of the people “leading” congregations “identifying as rabbis “.
She’s a massive hypocrite and perfect example of failed Jewish leadership in the diaspora. This is why after a lifetime of being a liberal Democrat and mostly secular reform Jew, I no longer associate with the Democratic Party or reform Judaism in any way.