New York City’s top Jewish officials urge Mamdani to recognize Israel’s centrality to Jewish identity
Council Speaker Julie Menin warned that vetoing bills to protect houses of worship could signal Mamdani’s broader disconnect with Jewish constituents
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal on April 14. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh April 22, 2026
New York City’s most senior Jewish elected officials are urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani to do more to address the concerns of Jewish New Yorkers directly, including acknowledging the community’s deep emotional connection to Israel and reconsidering his pledge not to visit the country.
Mamdani, who rose to power aligned with pro-Palestinian activism and is the city’s first Muslim mayor, has declined to recognize Israel specifically as a Jewish state and vowed not to continue the tradition upheld by previous mayors to travel to Israel. New York City has the largest concentration of Jews outside Israel.
“We understand that in the city of New York, for a great number of Jewish people, Israel is a core issue to our identity and even our feeling of personal safety,” said Mark Levine, the city’s comptroller and its highest-ranking Jewish elected official, during a panel on “the future of being Jewish in New York” hosted by the 92NY on Wednesday. Also on stage were City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
Holyman-Sigal, who as a state legislator visited Israel weeks after the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas attack, said that it would be “an enormous step forward” if Mamdani followed the tradition of every mayor preceding him, going back to 1951, to demonstrate solidarity with their Jewish constituents. “Maybe now is not the right time exactly, but to get that on his radar screen is going to be meaningful to a large segment of New Yorkers,” he said. “If Nixon can go to China, I think the mayor might consider that in the future.”
Mamdani, a supporter of the boycott Israel movement who co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Maine’s Bowdoin College, was met with suspicion from the start as he rose in the polls during the mayoral race last year. His statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unsettled many of the city’s more than 1 million Jews, who were divided in the competitive race, including his refusal to explicitly condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan used at some pro-Palestinian protests and his refusal to recognize Israel specifically as a “Jewish state.” Mamdani also faced backlash from his hard-line anti-Israel base for saying the country has a right to exist.
Three months into his mayoralty, Mamdani is still struggling to find a governing posture that reassures the largest Jewish community in America, as he insists he will not retreat from his criticism of Israel.
He has faced backlash from Zionist Jewish organizations, particularly after revoking executive orders on his first day in office tied to antisemitism and campus protests and his recent refusal to back legislation aimed at curbing disruptive protests outside synagogues and schools. He also promised to divest from city investments in Israel and pledged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York in compliance with an International Criminal Court warrant. Legal experts doubt Mamdani would have the authority to do that.
Nonetheless, Mamdani has increased his Jewish outreach efforts since taking office. Mamdani has also appointed Phylisa Wisdom, a progressive Jewish leader, to run the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism. Wisdom has laid out an ambitious early agenda focused on building trust across the city’s diverse Jewish communities.
In March, Mamdani convened a roundtable with Orthodox and Hasidic leaders at City Hall, his most visible outreach yet. But the meeting also underscored the administration’s uneven engagement. Mainstream organizations — including groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federations of New York — were not invited. Mamdani attended Passover Seders hosted by his progressive allies.
At the 92NY event, Menin, who is seen by some as a counterweight to Mamdani on Jewish issues, said that signing the legislative package to combat antisemitism, at a time when anti-Jewish incidents continue to make up a majority of reported hate crimes in the city, would be a key test. The bill directs the NYPD to craft a plan within 45 days for managing protests around houses of worship. It passed by a 44-5 vote, a veto-proof margin. Mamdani has declined to say whether he will sign measures or oppose them.
“I really hope that there is not a veto of that legislation, because I think that will lead to more division when we need less divisiveness,” Menin said.
Hoylman-Sigal said Mamdani’s approach would signal whether he is committed to protecting the Jewish community. He added that he “would be disappointed to say the least” if the mayor chooses to veto the legislation.
City Hall did not respond to multiple requests to interview the mayor about his outreach to the Jewish community during his media tour marking his first 100 days in office.
The future of Israel Bonds
Levine, the city’s chief fiscal officer, who is responsible for auditing agencies and nonprofits, has remained consistent in his promise to resume the purchases of Israel Bonds, debt securities issued by the Israeli government with a roughly 5% return. New York held the bonds between 1974 and 2023, when then-comptroller Brad Lander, who is also Jewish, ended the city’s investment of $39,947,160 in them.
Mamdani had urged Lander to end it permanently, although the mayor can neither prevent the investment nor overrule it.
Levine defended his position on Wednesday. “This is about the fiduciary responsibility that I have and that we have in safeguarding these assets and deploying them in a globally diverse way,” he said. “Israel bonds have never missed a payment in 70 years, ever, not once. They pay excellent interest.”
The comptroller also called out critics who have been protesting outside his office. “We have had no protesting about our investments in Saudi Arabia, our investments in Pakistan or China, only this one little, tiny sliver,” Levine said. He added, “I have many criticisms of the policies of the current government of Israel, have many criticisms of the policies of the current government of the United States, but we own treasury bills because it’s a financial instrument that meets an important need for us.”
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