Molly Crabapple

When I look at Mamdani, I don’t see some radical departure. I see him as an heir to the Yiddish socialism that helped build New York.

The language sustained a Jewish diasporan secular culture. Today, that heritage survives in a gritty corner of Queens to be claimed by a new generation.

In 2011, a grassroots anticapitalist movement galvanized people with its slogan “We are the 99 percent.” It changed me, and others, but did it change the world?

Utopia Parkway, which slices through the most diverse borough in New York, began as a dream of cooperative housing for poor Jewish immigrants.

Family paintings led me to a revolutionary society my mother’s grandfather was a member of and whose story was interwoven with Eastern European Jews.

The most visible symbol of a labor movement that isn't dead yet, that is willing to fight, not just make backroom deals.