New York Mayor Mamdani announces plan to fight anti-Semitism, without discussing Israel

The mayor’s report stated that while Jews represent only 12% of New York City’s population, they comprise roughly half of all victims of reported hate crimes.

NEW YORK – After months of tension with some Jewish leaders in New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Sept 29 released a report on anti-Semitism in New York City, laying out ways to combat hate crimes against Jews while sidestepping any politically fraught discussion of Israel.

Throughout the 35-page report, Mamdani’s administration details how it intends to take on anti-Semitism, including with tens of millions of dollars it has already allocated for hate crime prevention, as well as programmes to continue celebrating Jewish traditions.

Mamdani, a long-time critic of Israel, has spoken less about the issue in recent weeks, after acknowledging in a widely watched video in July that he lacked the authority to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he had promised to do.

In August, a group of rabbis beseeched the Mayor to pay greater attention to the effects his criticisms could have on the city, which is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and where concerns about anti-Semitism remain high.

The report’s omission of any discussion of the Israeli-Hamas conflict reflects the sensitive and fraught politics around the issue.

Prominent Jewish leaders say the growing opposition to Israel and the war in the Gaza Strip has at times spilt over into anti-Semitic rhetoric. Supporters of the Palestinian cause, including some progressive Jewish groups, say they should be free to critique Israel’s conduct without being accused of anti-Semitism.

The report recommends continuing and expanding many existing city policies, such as teaching public school students about the Holocaust and providing training to city workers on “understanding Jewish experiences”.

There are also new ideas, if modest, including highlighting the contributions of Jewish New Yorkers on the thousands of LinkNYC kiosks that provide Wi-Fi coverage on city streets, and a pledge to demand more federal support for educational centres and museums about the Holocaust in the city.

The report comes at a moment of particular significance for Jews around the world, who are celebrating the High Holy Day season amid increased fears of anti-Semitic violence.

City Hall released the report less than a week after Netanyahu called Mamdani anti-Semitic while addressing a global audience at the United Nations.

Mamdani said Netanyahu, who is facing re-election in October, had “used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitise his genocide of Palestinians”.

An independent United Nations commission, as well as some international and Israeli human rights groups, have also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza; Netanyahu and his government have vigorously denied the accusations, as have some independent scholars.

During a briefing held via video call on the night of Sept 28, several elected officials pressed staff members from the Mayor’s Office to Combat Anti-Semitism, which produced the report, about its omission of the controversy surrounding Israel, noting the Mayor’s stance on the issue.

Michael Novakhov, a Republican Assembly member, told Phylisa Wisdom, who leads the office, that “the main source of anti-Semitism in our city at the moment is Mayor Mamdani,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.

Wisdom said at the briefing that all Jewish New Yorkers deserved protection, including those “who disagree with the Mayor on all manner of things and whom the Mayor may disagree with as well”.

Novakhov, whose district includes several largely Jewish areas of Brooklyn, pointed out that Mamdani had repeatedly called Netanyahu a war criminal.

The Mayor has called for the arrest of Netanyahu; the Prime Minister was accused of war crimes in 2024 by the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for his arrest. He has denied the charges.

During the call, Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Democratic Assembly member from the Bronx, called attention to the Mayor’s use of the term “genocide” to refer to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, saying that such language “kind of gives permission to some people to engage in anti-Semitic action”.

The term is not used in the report, but it is one that the Mayor uses frequently, including during an interview on the morning of Sept 29 on radio station WNYC.

The report highlights the increased resources Mamdani has directed to hate crime prevention – US$29 million (S$37 million) annually, up from US$3 million – and his administration’s relaunching of a working group to support security for synagogues and other Jewish cultural centres.

“For generations, Jewish New Yorkers have sustained our city,” Mamdani said in a 2½-minute video accompanying the report. He ticked off accomplishments by famed Jews and Jewish institutions, like composer Leonard Bernstein and Katz’s Delicatessen in Manhattan.

“Today, we hold a responsibility to sustain and protect our Jewish neighbours,” he said, “a responsibility that belongs to each of us.”

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, applauded the report for outlining policies that rely on an array of government agencies, but she questioned what she considered its limited description of anti-Semitism.

An introduction to a section titled “Statistics and polling on anti-Semitism” notes that American Jews have reported a marked rise in anti-Semitism in the past decade, pointing to the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, which was perpetrated by a man active in far-right extremist online communities.

It also notes that anti-Semitism and acts of anti-Semitic violence have only grown in recent years. It makes no mention of acts motivated by anti-Israel sentiment since the war in Gaza began.

“Obviously, there is a very real threat of right-wing anti-Semitism,” Spitalnick said. “The report should also recognise that in the last few years, we’ve seen increasing violence targeting Jews under the guise of protesting Israel.”

Hate crimes against Jews and Muslims increased in New York City after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, to which Israel responded with a bombing campaign in Gaza that is responsible for more than 70,000 deaths of Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, a count that does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes thousands of children.

During the first eight months of 2026, confirmed hate crimes in the city rose 16% overall, and anti-Semitic incidents rose 9%, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced earlier in September.

While Jews represent only 12% of New York City’s population, they comprise roughly half of all victims of reported hate crimes, according to the Mayor’s report.

Several politicians celebrated the report, with Liz Krueger, a state senator from Manhattan, thanking City Hall for outlining “concrete strategies the city intends to pursue to address the growth of anti-Semitism”.

“It is crucial that our Mayor, as the leader of our government, continues to make clear through words and actions that Jews in New York can express their religious and political beliefs safely, including those who express support for Zionism, without fear of threats, harassment or violence,” she continued.

Mamdani chose to retain the Mayor’s Office to Combat Anti-Semitism, a late-tenure creation of his predecessor Eric Adams, at the same time that he revoked an executive order signed by Adams that designated some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

Criticism of Israel, and the championing of Palestinian rights, have been central to Mamdani’s political identity.

As a student at Bowdoin College, he founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. As a state legislator, he sponsored legislation that would have stripped tax-exempt status from charities with ties to settler groups in the occupied West Bank.

The report released on Sept 29 pointedly avoids defining anti-Semitism.

“New York City can and will leverage all of the tools at its disposal to combat anti-Semitism effectively without needing to adopt a definition for this specific form of hate,” the report reads.

But it does describe as “a useful framework” a description contained in former president Joe Biden’s US National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism, released in May 2023.

It describes anti-Semitism as “a stereotypical and negative perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred of Jews. It is prejudice, bias, hostility, discrimination or violence against Jews for being Jews or Jewish institutions or property for being Jewish or perceived as Jewish.”

It added that anti-Semitism could take the form of discrimination based on race, religion, national origin or ethnic identity.

“However, anti-Semitism is not simply a form of prejudice or hate,” it said. “It is also a pernicious conspiracy theory that often features myths about Jewish power and control.”

Ron Klain, a former White House chief of staff under Biden and former trustee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, praised the report on Sept 29, saying that “the thoughtful and energetic plans in this strategy offer a robust set of tools to combat this ancient hate”. NYTIMES

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.