Mamdani releases documentary that neglects tenant union's anti-Israel roots

Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, released a nearly 14-minute documentary on Tuesday titled “The Union of Pinnacle Tenants: A Short History of NYC Housing” and focused on a group that he supported on his first day in office in January.

The short film addresses a tenant union spanning 93 buildings formerly owned by Pinnacle Group. It neglects to mention the group’s ties to the Crown Heights-based Palestine Solidarity Working Group, which says that displacement of tenants in Brooklyn is tied to the Palestinian cause.

The official city documentary depicts the union as a grassroots response to leaks, vermin, utility failures and other hazardous conditions in some 5,100 rent-stabilized apartments.

The union criticized Pinnacle, which was owned by Jewish real estate investor Joel Wiener, for raising money through Israel’s bond market. That is not mentioned in the documentary.

“From Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestine Solidarity Working Group of Crown Heights Tenant Union heightened the urgency of this campaign, to intentionally disrupt the connected processes of displacement between Palestine and Brooklyn,” the union states.

The group argued that tenants fighting poor housing conditions in Crown Heights were part of the same global struggle as are the Palestinians.

“Capital thinks and acts globally, and we have the capacity to do the same: to engage in robust internationalist struggle, building power from our couches and kitchens, our hallways and laundry rooms,” the working group stated, according to the union.

“We must reject the living conditions being thrust upon us here and the devastation of life and land in Palestine,” it added.

The union also made Pinnacle’s Israeli financing a central part of its case against the company. Its website states that Pinnacle began borrowing through the Israeli bond market in 2012 and had raised about $500 million by 2017.

“The Israeli occupation’s banks and institutional investors lend Pinnacle money to buy rent-stabilized buildings in New York, and Pinnacle pays them back with interest on those loans,” it states. “What this means is that in occupied Palestine, Zionist investors are counting on the displacement of rent-stabilized tenants in Crown Heights to see a return on their investments.”

The documentary doesn’t mention the Palestine Solidarity Working Group, Pinnacle’s Israeli bond financing or the union’s claims about “Zionist investors.”

Instead, it describes the union as emerging from conversations among tenants about building conditions, followed by the formation of tenant associations and organizing during Pinnacle’s bankruptcy.

Pinnacle entered bankruptcy proceedings in 2024 involving 93 buildings and approximately 5,100 rent-stabilized apartments. Summit Properties acquired the portfolio on April 1, 2026.

Mamdani’s administration sought to delay the sale and later said that its intervention helped secure a commitment from Summit to spend $30 million on repairs and address outstanding housing-code violations.

The documentary states that Summit also agreed to forgive millions of dollars in rent arrears accrued under Pinnacle’s ownership.

The film describes the union as a “grassroots effort” and closes by highlighting Mamdani’s housing agenda and Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, who narrates the documentary.

Weaver faced backlash earlier this year after social-media posts resurfaced in which she called for the seizure of private property and described homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy.”

JNS sought comment from the mayor’s office about why the Palestine-solidarity organizing was excluded from a film billed as a history of the union and about whether Mamdani supports the union’s characterization of Israeli investors.

Mamdani has said that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state, and he campaigned on having the Israeli prime minister arrested in New York. His spokeswoman said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events.

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