Mamdani sworn in as NYC mayor

Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, was sworn in as New York City’s 112th mayor shortly after midnight on Jan. 1.

Mamdani, 34, a Queens state assemblyman, was sworn in by State Attorney General Letitia James at an abandoned subway station, with his wife, Rama Duwaji, by his side. He is the first New York City mayor to use a Quran at his swearing-in.

“This is truly the honour and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said after taking the oath to faithfully discharge his duties as mayor and paying the $9 filing fee, The New York Post reported.

Mamdani campaigned on affordability and cost-of-living issues but is a vocal critic of Zionism, a stance that has left New York’s Jewish community unsettled.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, a leading liberal critic of Mamdani, told JNS in November: “History demonstrates to us that wherever anti-Zionism is normalised and wherever it has support, anti-Zionism has support from high-level government officials, as night follows day, hostility to Jews increases.”

A day before Mamdani became mayor, the city office to combat Jew-hatred released its first annual report.

“Antisemitism is not only a Jewish problem,” outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams wrote in the report. “It tests our city’s character.”

According to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), at least 20% of Mamdani’s 400-plus transition team appointees were connected to groups or have a “documented history of making anti-Israel statements.”

Two days before his inauguration, Mamdani appointed anti-Israel attorney Ramzi Kassem as the city’s chief counsel.

Kassem, 47, who wrote anti-Israel articles for his campus newspaper as a student, is co-founder of Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) at the CUNY School of Law. Lawyers from CLEAR, including Kassem, represented Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate detained by immigration authorities for allegedly leading anti-Israel protests.