Zohran Mamdani’s warm Hanukkah candle-lighting video was supposed to glow, but it ended up lighting a fuse online.
The mayor-elect posted a holiday message and clip featuring actor Mandy Patinkin and Patinkin’s family, and critics quickly blasted it as a staged attempt to sanitize concerns about Mamdani’s antisemitic rhetoric and anti-Israel record, Breitbart reported.
Mamdani’s post described celebrating the holiday with “Mandy, Kathryn and their son, Gideon,” while noting Jewish New Yorkers preparing to light candles and observe “the seventh night today.”
The video shows Mamdani joining in Hanukkah traditions alongside Patinkin’s family in what was described as a home setting that “appeared to be a staged home setting.”
As of Sunday, the clip had surpassed one million views on X, helping turn a feel-good moment into a full-scale argument over motives.
Patinkin, the entertainer best known as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, became part of the controversy simply by showing up on screen.
Some commentators argued the celebration’s symbolism conflicts with Mamdani’s rhetoric and record, which the story says is widely viewed as antagonistic toward Jewish sovereignty.
Joel M. Petlin pointed to the holiday’s historical meaning, saying, “Chanukah marks the re-dedication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem after winning a war against Syrian Greek occupiers to restore Jewish sovereignty over Israel. That’s what Zohran Mamdani and the Patinkin family just celebrated together, though they probably don’t realize it.”
Avi Benlolo took aim at Patinkin’s involvement, writing, “Very disappointed in Mandy for supporting @ZohranKMamdani. The very essence of Chanukah is resistance against people who reject Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. Mandy should know better.”
Other pushback focused less on history and more on presentation, with users calling the video disingenuous and politically convenient.
One X user mocked the scene as a calculated switch-up: “This year, @ZohranKMamdani is forgoing his traditional mocking of the Jews on Hanukkah, and is instead mocking the ignorance of the Patinkins in them welcoming Zohran into their home as his props for a video,”
Another was blunter about the production value: “We’re not fooled, Zohran! You were raised by an actress, and you posed with an actor, and you both delivered a script. Of course, you wouldn’t visit an ordinary Jewish family’s home. This is another shameful staged performance.”
The storm around the clip also revived criticism the story says Mamdani has faced for refusing to condemn the chant “globalize the intifada,” which the story describes as glorifying violent uprisings against Israel.
The story adds context that intifadas were launched twice against Israel, and says the second began at the start of the millennium and included hundreds of terror attacks and thousands of deaths over four years.
In that atmosphere, one X user wrote, “Even though Mamdani tries to hide his true colors, the ‘globalize the intifada,’ antisemitic, and racist con man fools no one,”
The story says Mamdani has called Israel’s war against Hamas a “genocide,” and accused the United States of “bankrolling genocide” in interviews with Qatari state TV.
He also drew fire, according to the story, over remarks about a protest outside a Manhattan synagogue where antisemitic chants were shouted at congregants, after he suggested the synagogue may have been violating international law.
Meanwhile, Rep. Elise Stefanik labeled Mamdani a “raging antisemite” and “communist,” a harsh characterization that only intensified the partisan crossfire around the video.
Patinkin’s own political commentary also surfaced in the story, including his description of the first Trump administration as a “cancer that affects the world globally.”
The story also says that in July he blamed the Gaza war on Jews, amplifying Hamas’s narrative while ignoring the hostage crisis, a stance critics treated as a bad match for a Hanukkah-themed display.
As one X user put it, “@ZohranKMamdani didja know that Hanukkah is the most ancient representation of Zionism?” and another added, “Antizionist Hanukkah is an oxymoron,” underscoring why so many viewers saw the clip as politics dressed up as tradition.
