New York: Mayor Zohran Mamdani has released New York City’s first municipal strategy to address antisemitism, a 33-page document outlining measures ranging from enhanced security for synagogues to expanded Jewish history education in public schools. The plan draws both praise and sharp criticism, largely over one notable absence: Israel.
Mamdani, 33, has consistently described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. Those positions have divided New York’s Jewish communities. At the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu called him “the antisemitic mayor of New York.”
The strategy does not endorse any single definition of antisemitism. It references three different definitions and states that the city will use all available tools to fight antisemitism without adopting a formal definition. Federal hate crime statutes similarly carry no standalone definition of discrimination.
The document cites a “notable increase” in anti-Jewish crimes in New York over the three years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza. Jews make up 12 percent of the city’s population, yet antisemitic crimes account for more than half of all hate crimes recorded in the city.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights praised the plan. “This strategy reflects the voices of hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers consulted throughout the process and commits real city resources to fighting antisemitism wherever it appears,” she said.
Critics from pro-Israel groups argued the plan fails to address what they called Mamdani’s own role in spreading rhetoric that delegitimises Israel and harms Jewish New Yorkers. Some on the left also objected, feeling the plan leaned too closely toward Zionist frameworks.
Those who welcomed the plan saw the omission of Israel as a deliberate effort to separate antisemitism from criticism of Israel. Lila Corwin Berman of New York University said the plan “makes it really clear that Israel is not a synonym for Jew” and resists the conflation of Jewish identity with the Israeli state, a conflation she described as itself a vector of antisemitism.
Analyst Ben Lorber, who researches antisemitism, offered a measured assessment. “At root this is a municipal hate crimes prevention strategy. Nobody benefits by obsessively reading it through the Israel-Palestine prism,” he said.
The strategy arrived one day after a US Commission on Civil Rights report drew a legal distinction between conduct driven by hostility toward Jewish people and speech criticising Israel or Zionism as an institution or idea.
