A second rabbinic statement tied to the New York City mayor’s race has gained national attention and local participation, as several St. Louis Jews added their names to the “Jews for a Shared Future” letter. Among them is Rabbi Daniel Bogard of Central Reform Congregation, who played a key role in organizing the project after spotting its beginnings online.
Bogard said he saw the effort not as a campaign endorsement but as a call for solidarity. “This is a letter for rabbis who believe that we can’t successfully fight antisemitism without fighting Islamophobia,” he said.
The “Jews for a Shared Future” letter was written as a response to another rabbinic statement, “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future,” organized by a group called itself The Jewish Majority and signed by more than 1,200 rabbis and cantors nationwide. The letter argued that N.Y. mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s rhetoric on Israel and defense of slogans like “globalize the Intifada” threatened Jewish safety.
According to its website, Jewish Majority says it works to “fight extremists,” which it describes as fringe groups that “weaponize the Jewish identity of some of their members to call for policy recommendations rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community.”
In St. Louis, six rabbis, including Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg of United Hebrew Congregation and Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham of Congregation B’nai Amoona, signed the Jewish Majority letter.
In an interview with the Jewish Light earlier this week, Abraham said he signed because he believes the “political normalization of anti-Zionism” is spreading beyond New York. “It’s proliferating from New York City to right here in St. Louis, where Cori Bush is attempting to bring her politics of division back to our community,” he said. “There’s a reason that nearly 1,200 rabbis signed this letter in barely two days. I feel it, many of my congregants feel it and we won’t be silent about this growing problem.”
Jewish Majority has since updated its website, noting that more than 2,300 people have now signed a separate lay statement endorsing the letter, including 70 St. Louis area residents as of 9 p.m.
The “Jews for a Shared Future” letter
The “Jews for a Shared Future” letter rejects the argument that Mamdani is unfit for office due to his views on Israel. Instead, it affirms that Jewish safety is deeply connected with the safety of other communities, including Muslims and Palestinians.
“In response to Jewish concerns about the New York mayoral race, we recognize that candidate Zohran Mamdani’s support for Palestinian self-determination stems not from hate, but from his deep moral convictions,” the letter says. “Even though there are areas where we may disagree, we affirm that only genuine solidarity and relationship-building can create lasting security.”
The letter also responds to attacks on Mamdani’s Muslim identity, saying: “Jewish safety cannot be built on Muslim vulnerability, nor can we combat hate against our community while turning away from hate against our neighbors.”
By Thursday evening, the letter had drawn over 1,000 signers nationwide, including rabbis, educators and Jewish community leaders. Sixteen of them are from St. Louis, among them Bogard; Rabbis Karen Kriger Bogard and James Stone Goodman, also of Central Reform Congregation; Jeremy Brok of MaTovu; Professor Amy Alton Bautz of St. Louis University; and author Clare Kinberg.
A letter that grew overnight
Bogard said he first saw a draft of the “Jews for a Shared Future” letter in a private rabbinic forum earlier this week. It began as a simple Google Doc with about a dozen names and spread rapidly through private networks. “By the time I checked again, it had 60,” Bogard said. “At that point, it was just being shared in private rabbi forums and I realized it needed a better sign-on process.”
Bogard contacted Rabbi Shoshana Leis, a New York City rabbi who had drafted the letter and offered to help. Within hours, he built a website, created a secure form for sign-ons and added tools to filter out fake submissions.
Not an endorsement
Bogard emphasized that the “Jews for a Shared Future” letter is not an endorsement of any candidate. “This is not a Mamdani endorsement letter,” he said. “Anyone trying to make it that is reading it wrong.”
In national media coverage of the letter, one of the most widely quoted lines, “Jewish safety cannot be built on Muslim vulnerability,” came directly from Bogard. “That’s my language,” he said. “Jewish American flourishing since World War II has been part and parcel of the flourishing of pluralistic, multicultural democracy in the United States. We’ve understood for a long time that our fate will always be tied up with other vulnerable minorities.”
Reflecting on community division
Kinberg, a St. Louis writer and longtime Jewish community advocate, said she was drawn to the message of shared responsibility reflected in the letter.
“Forty years ago, I learned from many of the people who signed the ‘Shared Futures’ letter that to love Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people, we also had to recognize that Israel is home to both Jews and Palestinians,” Kinberg said. “I’m moved that older folks like me are now joined by a new generation who understand this as well. The legacy institutions of Jewish life still have the preponderance of money, staff, buildings and infrastructure, but the momentum, I believe, is with those of us who signed the Shared Futures letter.”
Bogard said the rapid growth of the letter and the reactions to it illustrate how deeply Jewish communities are wrestling with questions of leadership and belonging. “We can feel the Jewish American community just tearing itself apart right now,” he said. “Ultimately, we have to make a choice. Our Jewish institutions have to commit to being a tent that’s big enough to include the widest spectrum of Jewish voices and small enough to keep out the bullies.”
