May 31, 2026

Well, in a city where everyone treats parades like constitutional obligations, Mayor Zohran Mamdani broke a more than 60-year streak by doing the unthinkable: not showing up to the Israel Day Parade after saying he wouldn’t show up to the Israel Day Parade. The spectacle still rolled down Fifth Avenue in full civic pageantry, with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch marching as grand marshal and the usual parade of elected officials — including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer — dutifully performing the ancient political ritual of being seen being seen. Mamdani, for his part, kept his campaign promise and explained that he had made his views on the Israeli government “abundantly clear,” which is modern mayoral code for “I’ll pass on the photo op, thanks.” In New York, even absence has to be headline-ready, and this one came with the extra sparkle of a tradition so sacred that missing it counts as a seismic event, at least until next year’s mandatory outrage briefing.

Leave a Reply