More than 25 grassroots organizations, local school groups, and neighborhood nonprofits signed an open letter criticizing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly released municipal strategy to combat antisemitism, arguing that it “falls dangerously short” and ignores the primary threats facing Jewish residents on the ground.
The coalition, consisting of over 25 New York City-based entities including the BridgeBuilders Grassroots Coalition, the New York Jewish Alliance, JewBelong, and End Jewish Hatred, stated that they represent “everyday New Yorkers across the city” who deal with antisemitism daily in schools, workplaces, cultural institutions, and neighborhoods.
The signatories said that the administration’s plan largely overlooks contemporary anti-Jewish hostility tied to Middle East politics, noting that the document “reaches back eight years to highlight right-wing terrorist attacks in other cities, while failing to discuss, or even mention, a single anti-Jewish incident that occurred in New York in the past three years.”
The letter, signed on Friday, said that “our community generally isn’t encountering Charlottesville-style white supremacists in our neighborhoods” but is instead facing “anti-Zionist animus that too often veers into anti-Jewish harassment, exclusion, and even violence”.
Groups state Mamdani's plan ignores biggest threat to NY Jews
While noting that some of the proposed measures may have value, the groups said that “they largely sidestep the biggest threat Jewish New Yorkers are dealing with today: anti-Jewish exclusion and violence cloaked as anti-Israel activism.”
The group also said that the “omission isn’t incidental. It’s the central failure of the report.”
Detailing the daily reality on city streets, the coalition said that “anti-Zionist harassment has become normalized in our city and the violence it inspires is completely unsurprising,” pointing out that Jewish New Yorkers are targeted due to events in the Middle East and Israel.
The letter noted that “‘Free Palestine’ is yelled at Jewish performers in derisive tones” and residents “are called ‘babykillers’, ‘rapists’, and ‘genocidaires’ as we walk the street or shop for groceries,” alongside acts of physical violence such as “stabbings, car rammings, bomb threats and assaults.”
The letter criticized the administration’s framework for omitting a definitive stance, stating that the report “explicitly declines to adopt a definition of antisemitism and provides little concrete guidance for perhaps the hardest and most pertinent questions institutions are confronting: When is conduct framed as anti-Zionist political expression simply anti-Jewish targeting or discrimination?”
Groups demand new plan
Concluding that “how can we solve a problem if we refuse to even acknowledge the cause?” The groups demanded a new plan, stating that “a strategy to combat antisemitism in New York City must address antisemitism as Jewish New Yorkers are experiencing it today, and must not deny their agency to identify and define the hate they encounter.”
The letter’s release comes in direct response to the municipal strategy report titled “Tackling Hate: The Mamdani Administration’s Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” published by the Office of the Mayor and led by the newly reestablished Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism under Executive Director Phylisa Wisdom.
The administration’s report outlines a whole-of-government approach across seven strategic objectives, including a nearly ninefold budget increase for the Office for Prevention of Hate Crimes to $26 million.
This features $7.4 million designated for nonprofit physical security and doubled funding for Partners Against the Hate grants, alongside enhanced educational curricula through New York City Public Schools, expanded cultural competency training via the NYC Commission on Human Rights, and increased support from the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force.