WHEN

Wednesday, September 10th, 2025 | 6:00-9:00PM

WHERE

Sunset Park
Location provided upon RSVP

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Honorees

NYS Tenant Bloc

The NYS Tenant Bloc is organizing tenants from our homes to the ballot box to take power from the real estate industry. Tenants are half the state: united we could take control over our homes and democracy. Their advocacy helps all New Yorkers, up-and-down the state, winning victories such as good cause eviction protections, eviction moratoria, and statewide rent stabilization. At this moment, the number one issue New Yorkers are facing is the affordability crisis and housing insecurity. We celebrate the work of NYS Tenant Bloc and their commitment to building a New York for ALL.

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M. Gessen

We are honoring M. Gessen in recognition of their scholarship and activism dedicated to combatting fascism, in this current political climate where totalitarianism is on the rise we wish to celebrate and learn from their work within the anti-fascist field. M. Gessen is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. They are the author of 11 books of nonfiction, most recently Surviving Autocracy, as well as The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, which won the National Book Award in 2017. In December 2023, The New Yorker published an essay by Gessen titled "In the Shadow of the Holocaust," which won the author a George Polk Award for Commentary and nearly cost them the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought.

Most recently, M. Gessen authored a must-read NYT op-ed entitled “The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism.” If you have not already, give it a read!

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DREAM Team: Brad Lander & Zohran Mamdani

Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani are each incredible leaders in their own right. But at this year’s Mazals, we honor their partnership and the hope and optimism they’ve inspired.

Brad Lander: Brad Lander is a dad, a Brooklynite, and a lifelong public servant who has spent his career solving New Yorkers problems — first as an affordable housing leader, then in the City Council, and now as NYC Comptroller. For years, Brad ran housing organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development, building and saving thousands of affordable homes. On the City Council, Brad passed groundbreaking legislation to protect workers. In Gowanus, he led the largest redevelopment effort in the city that created thousands of units of affordable housing. As Comptroller, Brad was the first public official to stand up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk when they stole $80 million in taxpayer money from our city, and he rejected Eric Adams’s no-bid contract that wasted $432 million in taxpayer money. From his days in City Council to his current role as Comptroller, Brad has been JFREJ’s staunchest ally in office for over a decade, including organizing with us to pass landmark legislation to end Stop & Frisk in NYC, and most recently, putting his body on the line between new New Yorkers and the ICE Gestapo who have invaded our city.

Zohran Mamdani: Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a New York State Assemblymember, democratic socialist, and the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City. Born in Uganda and raised in NYC, he has fought for the working class in and outside the legislature: hunger striking alongside taxi drivers to achieve more than $450 million in transformative debt relief, winning over $100 million in the state budget for increased subway service and a successful fare-free bus pilot, and organizing New Yorkers to defeat a proposed dirty power plant. JFREJ has been proud to organize alongside him for a ceasefire and full hostage deal, for Fair Pay for Home Care, and for the Not On Our Dime Act, and to have endorsed him for mayor.

Together, Brad and Zohran – a progressive Jew and a Muslim socialist – teamed up, refusing to attack one another, and stayed focused on preventing Cuomo’s comeback. Their ongoing collaboration has been a model of true solidarity and leadership dedicated to the public good, offering a new kind of politics altogether. Instead of vicious infighting, we got joyful collaboration. We got to see what happens when we join forces as progressives and Leftists, have each others’ backs, and maximize our collective power. We are delighted to honor them.

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Access & Information About the Venue

When: September 10th, 6-9pm

Where: Sunset Park (Location provided upon RSVP)

Food: We will be serving a buffet-style light dinner (including a signature cocktail!)

Access On-Site

The venue is ADA accessible and has an ADA accessible restroom.
The venue has gender-neutral restrooms.
The venue is accessible by the R train, a bus service and the ferry.
The main program will be live-streamed via socials and on Zoom via our hybrid ticket option.
We will be providing childcare- please fill out this form if you require childcare.
We will provide ASL and Spanish interpretation during the main program.
We will have a volunteer access team onsite and on Zoom to support all attendees.
The main program space is covered in astroturf. Please take that into consideration when choosing your shoeware!
When you buy tickets, please share any access needs you have with mazals@jfrej.org and we will do our best to meet them. If possible, please let us know about these requests by September 7th.

Access Virtually

The Mazals program includes ASL and Spanish interpretation as part of the livestream. Captions will also be enabled for this event.
Where possible, manual image descriptions of what is happening on stage throughout the livestream program will be posted in the Zoom chat. Please let us know if you will be using a screen reader or assistive technology by emailing mazals@jfrej.org.

Covid Safety

The event will begin outdoors and move into a large room with open windows and air ventilation/filtration.We have consulted with and are working with Covid safety and air quality experts to maximize air purification and air flow in the indoor space.
- We will not be requiring masking in the outdoor space or the main gala space, though we encourage you to do so if that is more comfortable for you and will be offering high quality masks. Here is more information about the space and how we came to that decisions:
  - The room is approximately 450 ft × 216 ft × 22 ft. There are windows on all four walls, though one wall will be blocked by draping. The windows will be open for the entire event and are about 3 feet by 8 feet each. We will have 4 large fans running throughout the event, as well as air purifiers in the space.
  - We will coordinate social distancing through spacing chairs 2 feet apart in the event space. The space is large enough that participants will be able to maintain 2-3 ft of distance if they desire.
  - We acknowledge that JFREJ’s Covid policy requires masking at all indoor events. Because of the spaciousness of the room, the open windows all along the walls and the extensive air filtration systems in place, we have decided not to require masks in that particular room.
The entrance to the building and the restrooms are indoors. Masks are required in all indoor spaces, including elevators and restrooms on the way to and from the main space.
We ask that everyone take a covid test on the day of the event and we will provide covid tests at the venue for attendees. We recognize that fall marks the start of respiratory season, and that there may be different viruses that folks are starting to be further exposed to, including COVID. To minimize the spread of any illness, please stay home if you don’t feel well or if you are in close quarters with someone who is not feeling well. Attendees can switch from onsite to virtual attendance on the day-of the event.
We know these Covid protocols will not be sufficient for everyone and are also providing a virtual experience that will include: breakout rooms, VIP interviews and guest appearances, cocktail/mocktail-making tutorials and more! We will also assure that the livestream of the program itself is high quality.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to mazals@jfrej.org

Security

As we expect a larger-than-typical crowd, we will have tighter security than you might have experienced at previous Mazals.
All guests must be pre-registered on the guest list in order to gain entry. The cut-off to purchase a ticket to the Mazals will be 12pm on September 10th, the day of the event.
The venue has private security who will conduct bag and wand checks at the front door, and who you might see at various locations in the space. We will also have a JFREJ-led volunteer safety and security team, who will pair with the venue security.
Please leave large bags at home, as we will not have coat or bag storage and it will slow the bag search process.
For Zoom attendees: To facilitate our security measures and ensure a safe and joyful evening, please make sure your Zoom profile has the same name you used when registering for the Mazals, including your pronouns if you like. ONLY guests whose profile names match their registration will be admitted by the security team when the program begins at 6:00pm.

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The 2025 Mazals

WHEN

WHERE

Honorees

NYS Tenant Bloc

M. Gessen

DREAM Team: Brad Lander & Zohran Mamdani

Access & Information About the Venue

Mazals Sponsors (list in progress)

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