Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio Plans Visit to Israel

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will visit Israel to speak about ways to combat anti-Semitism.

De Blasio is to leave Thursday for Jerusalem, where he will be the keynote speaker at a conference of international mayors sponsored by the American Jewish Congress and other Jewish groups.

De Blasio, who has been trying to plan a trip to Israel since the summer, will stay roughly three days and hold several events, the New York Times reported.

The first-term mayor, who is of Italian and Catholic heritage, has made strengthening ties with his Jewish constituency a priority since taking office in January 2014. He has spoken at synagogues of various denominations and loosened restrictions on the controversial metzitzah b’peh circumcision ritual at the request of Orthodox Jews.

De Blasio also flew to France soon after the attack on a kosher market in Paris to “stand in solidarity” with world Jewry.

New York politicians regularly visit Israel, in part because of the city’s large Jewish population.

De Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, made headlines for traveling to Israel during the 2014 Gaza war and saying that the country was still a “safe” place to visit during the conflict.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.