New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is drawing widespread criticism from Jewish leaders and Israeli officials for a new City Hall “whole-of-government” plan to tackle Jew-hatred.
The UJA-Federation of New York, Jewish Community Relations Council-NY, American Jewish Committee New York and New York Board of Rabbis stated jointly that “any effort to confront antisemitism in New York City must fully address the realities Jewish New Yorkers face today.”
The group allowed that Mamdani’s plan has “a number of positive elements, including some increased security funding for Jewish institutions and expanding proven programs.” But the plan “fails to address a central issue that the mayor himself has perpetuated: rhetoric that demonizes and delegitimizes Israel inevitably leads to the targeting of Jewish New Yorkers,” the groups said.
“Those who truly seek to address antisemitism must unequivocally reject such rhetoric and help ensure that Jewish New Yorkers are never made to feel suspect, excluded or unsafe in their own city,” the groups said.
Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York, stated that “money can’t buy values.”
“Until you recognize that your language against the Jewish state, which you don’t recognize as the homeland of the Jewish people, is the fundamental reason for the rise of antisemitism in New York City, it will continue to increase,” the Israeli envoy told the mayor.
“Truly combating antisemitism requires readopting the IHRA working definition of Antisemitism, which you overturned as the first decision of your administration on day one,” Akunis stated.
“To truly fight antisemitism would be to call for your supporters to stop shouting ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘globalize the intifada,’ have them condemn the Oct. 7 massacre and instead of supporting Hamas, declare that they are a terror organization,” he added.
The mayor’s new plan will not work as long as Mamdani accuses the Jewish state of “genocide” and says that the Israeli prime minister ought to be arrested, according to Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with about 850 member families.
Hirsch told JNS that “fundamentally, the report is such a disappointment and frankly unworthy of the mayor and administration.”
“Because it omits the central driver of antisemitism which is anti-Israel hostility,” the strategy “of course omits the mayor’s own role in adding to that,” the rabbi said.
The new strategy “will not stop or even slow down the surge of antisemitism in the city as long as the mayor and forces that are opposed to Israel’s existence” speak about Israel as he does, Hirsch told JNS.
Ignoring the connection between anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred “is a big evasion, very disappointing and I think that the mayor knows better,” Hirsch said.
The strategy, which City Hall released on Tuesday, is the city’s “first strategy to combat antisemitism,” Mamdani’s office said. It called the approach “historic” and said that it “doubles hate crime prevention funding for community organizations, with $6.4 million to counter hate and support survivors.”
The plan also comes with a “$1 million investment” that “will strengthen security at synagogues and other houses of worship,” and “includes major investments in Jewish historical and cultural institutions, expanded Holocaust education and a new city human rights law awareness campaign,” the mayor’s office said.
The strategy outlines multiple steps toward combatting Jew-hatred, emphasizing education in public schools, and commits millions of newly-allocated dollars to increasing security at Jewish institutions and to bolstering two Jewish cultural organizations.
It details and lauds Jews for their cultural and institutional contributions to what Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, calls “Jewish people’s front door to America.”
“The numbers are indisputable: Jewish New Yorkers make up only 12% of our population, yet they are the victims of roughly half of all reported hate crimes,” Mamdani wrote, in an introduction to the report. (The New York City Police Department tends to estimate that Jews are 10% of New Yorkers.)
The report touts the mayor’s allocation of $26 million to the city’s Office to Prevent Hate Crimes. Of that, $6.4 million is dedicated to “countering online hate speech, data collection, restorative justice and survivor support,” and $1 million is for “supporting the physical security of nonprofit organizations, including synagogues and other houses of worship,” the report says.
The mayor’s strategy does not specify how much of that funding would be devoted to Jewish institutions.
“My administration has zero tolerance for antisemitism. Not on our subways. Not in our workplaces. Not online. Not anywhere,” Mamdani stated. “As mayor, I will use every power entrusted in me to protect Jewish New Yorkers and ensure that Jewish life flourishes for generations to come.”
In its 33 pages, the report almost entirely omits any mention of Israel or Zionism, which the mayor deeply opposes but are central to the identity of many New York Jews. The few times the strategy mentions the word “Israel” are in historical references to the city and in multiple references to Congregation Shearith Israel, an Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West side.
The lone reference to the Jewish state in the press release for the new strategy is the former New York City comptroller, who has accused Israel of “genocide,” stating that Jews disagree about the Jewish state.
“Mayor Mamdani’s plan to combat antisemitism is a thoughtful, strategic combination of education for tolerance, enforcement of civil rights and investments in safety,” stated Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for a safe congressional seat.
“It’s no secret that we don’t all agree on many things, from how we pray to how we relate to Israel, but we can all agree and work together on this: Jewish New Yorkers—like all New Yorkers, and in all our diversity—deserve to be and feel safe in our shuls, streets, homes and workplaces, and to feel a valued and integral part of this extraordinary city that has welcomed us, and where we have welcomed so many others,” Lander stated.
The report outlines three approaches to defining Jew-hatred but declines to adopt any of them, including that the widely adopted working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which had been city policy until Mamdani was sworn in on Jan. 1.
Mamdani revoked that definition, which classifies denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state but not other such states as antisemitism, as one of his first acts as mayor.
Many experts say that antisemitism has characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of hate, but the mayor, in the new strategy, appears not to agree. “One form of hatred cannot be combated in a vacuum,” the report states. “Antisemitism can, and must, be addressed hand in hand with all other forms of hatred.”
In the strategy, the mayor commits to “public messaging dedicated to stemming a documented rise in hate incidents and crimes and protecting and uplifting Jewish New Yorkers.”
Eric Dinowitz, co-chair of the Jewish caucus at the New York City Council and of the bipartisan council task force on Jew-hatred, represents parts of the Bronx, including the heavily Jewish Riverdale neighborhood.
In a statement, he lauded the report for “its focus on education, prevention, enforcement and ensuring Jewish New Yorkers can live openly and proudly in our city.” But the mayor’s strategy “misses an opportunity to confront the reality of the intersection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism,” the Jewish council member stated.
“Though Zionism is not an endorsement of a particular Israeli government or political agenda, we cannot ignore that attacking or excluding ‘Zionists’ can and has become a convenient way to disguise antisemitism as political disagreement,” Dinowitz stated.
Nancy Kaufman, a longtime communal leader and chair of the New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive group that supports a “democratic vision of Israel,” told JNS that the report is “on Jewish life in New York City, not on Israel.”
“This really is singularly focused on Jews in New York and celebrating Jews in New York, so it doesn’t surprise me that Israel isn’t part of it,” she said. “It hits the right tone and hopefully will reassure Jewish New Yorkers, who have questions about the commitment of the mayor to their safety.”
Mark Goldfeder, a rabbi and CEO, and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, stated that “Mamdani’s ‘first-ever’ antisemitism strategy is mostly just the Adams plan that he deleted on day one of his administration but with every page that touches Israel torn out.”
“That is the whole review, the rest is commentary,” he said.
A few hours after the mayor’s office released the strategy, it said that Mamdani “will celebrate Sukkot with Jewish New Yorkers.” The event is “available to invited press only,” it said. JNS was not invited.
