“My mayor Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish. My Christian Dior, Knicks in four!” The chant became an instant rallying cry, capturing New York’s basketball fervor in the runup to the Knicks’ NBA championship win. But it also pointed to something deeper – the unity of New Yorkers of different faiths, backgrounds, and cultures. “We’re really in a time of great division. There’s a lot of hate going around,” said 23-year-old Knicks fan MD Ahnaf Hossain, who popularized the chant in a viral TikTok video. “And the message that I sent is really just uniting some of the biggest religions in the world, and it’s uniting a lot of people in a time of hate.”
Hossain said his words were inspired by his upbringing in Jamaica, Queens, which he called a “melting pot” of culture. When the Knicks won the championship June 13, for the first time in 53 years, images of New Yorkers of all backgrounds celebrating together in the streets flooded social media. But the victory came in game five of the championships – rather than game four – so Hossain updated the chant: “My mayor is still Muslim. My bagels are still Jewish. The Pope was on our side. So the Knicks took it in five.”
The New York Times called the phrase “pure New York City poetry,”with references to the city’s diverse religious landscape and a few other shout outs, as well. “My mayor Muslim” references Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor. (It’s also reminiscent of Young Jeezy’s “My President,” reports the Guardian, a 2008 song that tributes Barack Obama with the lyrics, “My president’s Black, my Lambo’s blue.”) Mamdani’s progressive policies, his laser-focus on making the city more affordable for working families, and his message of unity has made him wildly popular both at home and abroad. “My bagel’s Jewish” references the iconic New York City food, first brought to the city by Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine in the late 19th century. New York City is now home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. “My Christian Dior,” which references the Christian religion and the fashion brand, is an homage to the late New York City rapper Pop Smoke, the Times reported.
The updated version of the chant, “The Pope was on our side,” references Pope Leo XIV’s support for the Knicks. Pope Leo was seen in a social media video replying with a thumbs up to a fan’s cry of “Go Knicks!” And the Pontiff signed a custom “Pope Leo” Knicks jersey (number 14, of course) during a meeting with filmmaker Spike Lee and other celebrities, reports GQ. Lee later wore the jersey to a game.
If there’s one thing people from such a diverse arrays of backgrounds have in common, it’s love for the Knicks – and love for the city. The catchphrase resonated with so many because it highlighted a collective thread marked by joy, enthusiasm, and devotion. That joy was evident in the celebrations that showed fans, many complete strangers, hugging, high-fiving and dancing together in the streets.
“Over these past weeks, as the Knicks kept winning, our city has come together as one,” Mamdani said during a celebratory parade June 18. “Neighbors invited neighbors over. Strangers high-fived one another in the street. Subway conductors sang their announcements and bus drivers danced behind the wheel. So often when this city comes together it is because we are forced to by a moment of tragedy or adversity. What a gift it is to be brought together by pure, unfiltered joy. For as long as we live we will remember this feeling of a city together. A city alive. A city overcome by happiness.”
After the parade, Hossain joined Mamdani at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn for a get-out-the-vote rally ahead of New York’s primary election June 23.
“Different backgrounds, different beliefs, different stories, but one heartbeat,” Hossain wrote in the caption of an Instagram video in which he and Mamdani embraced. “In a world that often tries to divide us, New York showed what makes it special – people standing up for each other. The energy wasn’t just about the game. It was about unity. About cheering together, celebrating together, and proving that this city is strongest when we stand side by side.”
The fervor itself took on a tone of spiritual ecstasy, as Lauren Jackson of the New York Times reported in her column, Believing.
Jackson likened the electric energy of New Yorkers to “collective effervescence,” a term coined by sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the intense emotion that comes with gathering with a large crowd to perform a ritual.
“The very fact of assembling is an exceptionally powerful stimulant,” Jackson quoted Durkheim as writing in “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life” in 1912. “Once the individuals are assembled, their proximity generates a kind of electricity that quickly transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation.”
Beyond gathering in a large group, sociologists have identified other elements, including identity with a common tribe (the Knicks,) a shared focus, and a shared mood, that contribute to “collective effervescence.” Jackson wrote that many Knicks fans used religious language to describe their devotion to the team, and their intensity is the kind normally reserved for a religious space. Which, Jackson observes, is what the city has become.
But among sports fans, a quasi-religious devotion and a spirit of unity is by no means limited to the Knicks. As World Cup matches launched in June, bringing soccer fans from across the globe to the games in North American cities, a broader kind of “collective effervescence” emerged. Stories of cross-cultural celebrations went viral across social media, all of them highlighting themes of enthusiasm and unity.
“One thing has become clear while watching the World Cup: People don’t hate each other. Governments do,” Oregon state representative Ricki Ruiz wrote on Threads. “In the stands, you see fans from every corner of the world sharing meals, trading scarves, taking photos together, and celebrating the beautiful game. The World Cup reminds us that ordinary people have far more in common than what divides us. For 90 minutes a game, the world feels united.”