New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a multimillion-dollar strategy to combat antisemitism, drawing criticism from prominent Jewish leaders who described the announcement as an attempt to deflect attention from the mayor’s own rhetoric while avoiding one of the defining sources of modern anti-Jewish hostility: the demonization of Israel and Zionism. Mamdani announced what his administration called the nation’s first municipal strategy dedicated to combating antisemitism, declaring that Jewish New Yorkers "should feel cherished and celebrated in the most Jewish city in America." The mayor cited New York Police Department statistics showing that although Jewish residents constitute approximately 12% of the city’s population, antisemitic incidents account for more than half of its confirmed hate crimes. EXCLUSIVE: ISRAELI PRESIDENT HERZOG BLASTS MAMDANI, PRAISES TRUMP, SOUNDS ALARM ON IRAN "This is not only unacceptable, it’s something we all have an obligation to change," Mamdani said.
"And City Hall will lead the way." His administration said it is increasing hate crime prevention funding by $26 million, an increase of more than 800% from the previous year. The plan includes $6.4 million for community organizations working to prevent hate violence and would restart an interagency security and infrastructure initiative disbanded in 2024. The city also pledged $2 million for the Queens Holocaust Memorial Garden and $2.5 million for the Brooklyn Center for New Jewish Culture, alongside expanded education, reporting resources and security support for Jewish institutions.
The way that money would be distributed also drew scrutiny. Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, senior rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said that only $1 million is dedicated specifically to security while millions more would be directed through community initiatives. MAMDANI IN THE HOT SEAT AFTER FIRST VETO DERAILS BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM: 'DISAPPOINTED' "All of this money is pure pork barrel politics," Steinmetz told Fox News Digital.
"Outside of a million dollars in security, it is all being spent on community initiatives that will reward his supporters." The Jewish leaders who spoke with Fox News Digital welcomed the security investments but argued that physical protection alone cannot address an environment in which Jews increasingly feel pressured to distance themselves from Israel. From Manhattan’s East Side to its West Side, three prominent rabbis shared another concern: Not one had been contacted by the mayor or his administration while the strategy was being developed, despite collectively leading some of the borough’s largest Jewish congregations. Those concerns raise basic questions about how the strategy was constructed: which Jewish leaders and institutions helped shape it, how did the administration decide where the funding would go, and how were organizations selected to receive it?
Fox News Digital asked those questions, along with Steinmetz’s criticism of the funding process, to the mayor’s office but had not received a response at the time of publication. The mayor's strategy acknowledges rising antisemitism since Oct. 7 and expands Holocaust education, but does not directly address the hostility Jewish students have experienced on college campuses or examine when anti-Israel activism crosses into antisemitic harassment and intimidation. The three rabbis interviewed by Fox News Digital identified that omission as a significant weakness in the city’s strategy.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan and president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the plan omits what he considers the central driver of contemporary antisemitism. CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM EXTENDS BEYOND STUDENT PROTESTS AND INTO CLASSROOMS, ADL WARNS "If the purpose here is to combat and reduce antisemitism, the plan omits the central driver of contemporary antisemitism, which is an obsessive loathing of Israel," Hirsch told Fox News Digital. That hostility, he said, is directed "not only" toward the state of Israel but toward "the Zionist idea, the right of Israel to exist, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in the land of Israel." "To write a 30-page report and never mention the state of Israel, let alone address the vicious anti-Zionism, partially fomented by the mayor himself, is evading the issue," Hirsch said.
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