Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, said on Friday during a press conference that he has heard concerns from New Yorkers about a group of bills that the New York City Council passed the prior day to protect Jews in the city.
A reporter asked the mayor, whose spokeswoman said that synagogues violate international law by hosting pro-Israel events, whether he has spoken to Julie Menin, the first Jewish speaker of the City Council, since the council voted on the bills. The reporter also wondered if the mayor plans to sign or veto the bills.
“So, the speaker and I are in regular conversation,” Mamdani said. “I’ll say that when it comes to this legislation, I’m aware of the serious concerns that New Yorkers have raised regarding these bills limiting New Yorkers’ constitutional rights, and I will consider those concerns in my decision-making.”
“I’m always looking forward to charting a course in this city that protects the right to prayer and the right to protest, and these are pieces of legislation that have had significant amendments from the time in which they were initially proposed to when they were passed, and I look forward to now reviewing the final version of both of these bills,” he said, “by the legal timeline that I have to.”
The legislative package that the council passed would create protective perimeters around houses of worship and schools during protests, require the city’s education department to distribute materials to students about the risks of social media and online hate, direct the mayor to establish an agency to provide religious and nonprofit institutions with support in establishing emergency plans and make a hot line for reporting discrimination.
The bill that empowers the New York City Police Department to set limits on how close demonstrators can gather near entrances to synagogues passed with a veto-proof majority—44 out of 51 members.
