Mamdani’s team of Jew-haters will change New York

The most important thing about the Anti-Defamation League’s latest “Mamdani Monitor” is that its results were so unsurprising and generated few headlines in New York or anywhere else.

That 20% of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s 400 appointees to various transition committees have ties to anti-Zionist and antisemitic groups—or have engaged in acts of Jew-hatred online—is, in and of itself, an astounding figure. It’s even more astounding when you consider that they are engaged in an effort to govern a city with the largest Jewish population in the world.

But then, what else would you expect from someone whose entire political career is rooted in opposition to the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet?

Mamdani dismissed the ADL’s data as unimportant and claimed that those who accuse him of complicity with Jew-hatred don’t distinguish between “criticism of Israel” and actual antisemitism.

A hostile administration

That isn’t true since the ADL report took into account such a difference. Like Mamdani himself, appointees who had engaged in antisemitism weren’t merely “critical” of Israeli government policies. They seek the destruction of the Jewish state and/or support terrorism against it, as well as acts of intimidation and violence elsewhere aimed at bolstering Hamas’s genocidal goals and silencing Jews who will not renounce their ties and affection for Israel.

The question is: Will the sheer numbers of antisemites in the Mamdani camp overwhelm the ability of those seeking to hold him accountable for his tolerance and encouragement of Jew-hatred? One such appointee, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, who was set to hold the crucial job of director of appointments, was forced to resign after her record of making antisemitic comments on social media was made public.

But in an administration where there will be more than 1,200 political appointees, the ADL report points to an obvious problem. It indicates just how prevalent this sort of behaviour, which would have been considered aberrant even in the most liberal of governments in the recent past, has become among the Democratic Party activists who will take these jobs after Mamdani takes office on Jan. 1.

Mamdani leapt into prominence from obscurity only after he won the New York City Democratic primary in June. Before then, the 34-year-old was an obscure member of the New York State Assembly and one of many hard-core leftists who make up a body that has a veto-proof Democratic supermajority. In the few months since, he has become not just a leading political figure in New York City, but a national celebrity of sorts that even some on the other end of the political spectrum—such as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance—have acted as if it was in their interest to ingratiate rather than confront him.

Does it matter?

We have been assured by leading Democrats not to worry about Mamdani endangering the Jews of New York, and he has himself often spoken as if that is not his intention. His stated intention of leaving New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish and perceived as a moderate Democrat, is also supposed to demonstrate that Mamdani’s long record of anti-Zionist activism and statements—which is, his disclaimers notwithstanding, indistinguishable from antisemitism—is a mere biographical detail that will have no impact on Jewish life in New York over the next four years.

Indeed, Mamdani is clearly aware that it’s in his interest to disarm Jewish critics.

In the wake of the mass shooting that killed 15 people on the first night of Chanukah in Australia, Mamdani reached out to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and paid a visit to the grave of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—in Queens, N.Y., as a solidarity gesture. In the week before the terrorist attack, he met with prominent rabbis, including some who were deeply critical of him. He also had a friendly meet-and-greet with the anti-Zionist Satmar sect that supported him in the election.

Yet even as he keeps saying that he wants to keep New York Jews safe and is opposed to antisemitism, he hasn’t budged an inch from his position that the Jewish state has no right to exist. And even after Bondi Beach and two years of the surge in antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Mamdani still won’t condemn the use of the slogan “Globalise the intifada” from his fellow anti-Israel activists.

As the ADL report indicated, he’s not alone in thinking that way. A significant number of those who are key members of his team and who will govern the city agree. They were among those who were cheering the illegal protests at colleges and universities throughout the five boroughs, where pro-Hamas mobs set up encampments, bullied Jewish students, blocked their entrance to classes and engaged in the violent takeover of buildings on campus.

Mamdani and his liberal media cheering section insist that there’s a difference between anti-Israel agitation and being anti-Jewish. But as his reaction to the siege of Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side indicated—where a pro-Hamas mob sought to “scare” Jews and prevent them from attending a pro-Israel event—the mayor-elect’s sympathies are with those attacking the Jewish community, not the victims of such attacks.

A hostile environment

As that incident demonstrated, at the very least, his administration will create an atmosphere where those who target Jews in New York for intimidation and support violence against them in Israel will feel empowered. Whether or not Tisch remains police commissioner for long—or even if she is willing to act as a real check on his soft-on-crime and tolerance for antisemitism—the policies he is likely to implement will only exacerbate the problem.

In particular, the shift toward a “community safety” approach to crime that will emphasise social work, rather than police action, is likely to make a city where few feel safe even more dangerous. His determination to eliminate the New York City Police Department’s Strategic Response Unit, which is trained to deal with protests, will also be a gift that is likely to keep on giving to those who chant “Globalise the intifada” in the coming years.

Yet at the most basic level, the statistics about the number of his appointees who have engaged in Jew-hatred point to the real problem.

It’s not just that the election as mayor of someone whose adult life has been dedicated to hatred of Israel is chilling to the overwhelming majority of New York’s Jews, who regard Israel and Zionism as an integral part of their faith and ethnic identity. In his administration, such sentiments will become so commonplace that it won’t be possible to single them out as worthy of condemnation and outrage.

It’s true that Mamdani won’t be able, as he continues to threaten to do, to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the city. And the fact that, unlike every other mayor since it began in 1964, Mamdani won’t march up Fifth Avenue in the annual “Salute to Israel” parade isn’t that big a deal.

Still, such gestures and policies will have a cumulative effect on public life in New York. They will create what in other contexts is easily identified as a hostile environment that will not only put Jews at risk but also make Jewish life more precarious. Outside of interactions with outlier groups like the Satmars or the not-inconsiderable number of (though still a minority) Jews who share the Democratic Socialist’s radical views, Mamdani’s disingenuous attempt to be an open opponent of a key aspect of Jewish identity without being viewed as antisemitic won’t wash.

The lessons of history

The Mamdani administration in New York is likely to teach us a lesson that should have already been obvious from even a cursory glance at Jewish history. Targeting one group of Jews or Jewish beliefs always leads to growing hostility against and ultimately violence against all Jews. And ignoring such problems or complacently wishing for them to go away won’t work.

Such horrors are only averted when societies regard the traditional tropes of Jew-hatred that are employed by left-wing antisemites like Mamdani, as well as the growing number of right-wingers who mimic them, as beyond the pale of civil discourse. Leading media outlets like The New York Times have mainstreamed antisemitic arguments about Israel and the Jews since Oct. 7 in their news coverage and commentary.

However, the election of Mamdani and the inauguration of a city administration where such views will be routine will take this process to the next level.

Though the new mayor will claim to oppose violence against Jews, the presence of so many city officials who have engaged in acts of Jew-hatred will remove any remaining stigma from such actions, no matter who is doing it.

In recent years, under its current CEO and national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL has seemed to abandon its primary mission of defending Jews against antisemitism in favour of left-wing and partisan activism. While there is still much to criticise in ADL’s approach to the issues, its decision to employ its considerable resources to scrutinise Mamdani is a welcome sign that it is returning to the job the Jewish community needs it to do.

They should not be alone in this.

Understandably, the reaction of most New York Jewish institutions and leaders to Mamdani’s election is to find a way to work with him, and hopefully, to influence the new mayor to abandon his radical past. But Mamdani is no ordinary politician, both in terms of his ability to appeal to young voters and his commitment to the causes that he supports.

Accommodation won’t work

No amount of making nice with the mayor or seeking common ground will ever convince this hard-core ideologue to give up his lifelong commitment to Israel’s destruction. He has made no secret of the fact that his “pro-Palestine” support for the ongoing war on the Jews is non-negotiable. While that won’t stop him from carrying out some of the basic functions of running the city, it is incompatible with Jewish safety.

The ADL report is one more warning to New York’s Jews that the only path forward must involve active resistance to an administration that is determined to marginalise and isolate them, even if it won’t openly back attacks on them. That will mean public protests and activities to confront the mayor and make it clear that business as usual will be impossible if Jew-hatred is tolerated and encouraged. And that will require the kind of courage and chutzpah to which the liberal-leaning Jewish establishment is generally allergic. But it is the only choice if New York is to remain a place where Jews and their families can still feel at home.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.