Mamdani's choice to cancel IHRA antisemitism definition must alarm New York Jews - comment

He called it a “new beginning.” A new beginning. When the biggest Jewish city outside of Israel says it can’t agree on what Jew-hatred looks like anymore, that’s what we’re calling it.

Unfortunately, I know exactly what’s going to happen next. People will say I’m being hysterical, that I’m making things worse, or that I’m using antisemitism as a weapon to protect Israel from criticism. They’ll say that the IHRA definition “chills speech” and “mixes up anti-Zionism with antisemitism.”

French synagogues hired security guards. Then, they put up concrete walls. After that, armed police had to be outside Jewish schools.

One by one, Jewish families in the suburbs of Paris began to leave for other places in France, for Israel, for London, and for Montreal. The French government kept saying that it was taking antisemitism seriously. They said, “France without Jews isn’t France.”

They spoke. At Holocaust memorials, they held ceremonies. They said violence was wrong after it happened. They didn’t name the problem clearly and make sure that there were consequences before the violence, which they couldn’t do because it was too politically charged.

Sweden did the same thing. There used to be a large Jewish community in Malmö. The ancient synagogue looks like a fortress now, and most of the Jews have left. The city kept saying it wasn’t antisemitism but “tensions related to the Middle East conflict.” As if that phrase meant something else, like it made Jewish kids safer in school.

Some parts of the UK are going through this right now. Jewish students at British universities have been complaining for years about harassment that is called “political speech.” Some Jewish families in London have quietly moved.

And here’s something that no one wants to admit: It didn’t start with violence. This is how it all began. It all began when institutions decided that being clear about antisemitism was too controversial, that protecting Jews might make other groups angry, and that it might be better to just make things a little less clear.

I’m not being over the top. I’m being coldly observant. The end doesn’t start with pogroms. It doesn’t start with laws that kick Jews out. It starts when mainstream institutions decide that keeping Jews safe is hard, that defining antisemitism is too political, and that Jews might be asking for too much protection.

It starts with what New York just did. The same thing happened in every European city where Jewish life has shrunk: first, the structure of intellectual permission. The essays that make you think. The faculty asks for things. The activist campaigns that say they worry about antisemitism are just cynical ways to shut down real criticism.

Then, the retreat of the institution. People question the definitions. The training is postponed. Universities, city agencies, and businesses begin to handle complaints from Jews differently from complaints from other groups – with more doubt, with more demands for proof and more worry about “context.”

The next step is testing. People begin to understand what they can get away with. The harassment is now called “political disagreement.” The threats are called “passionate activism.” The vandalism is called “property crime” instead of bias.

And last but not least, the change in demographics. Jews don’t hold press conferences to say they’re leaving. They just start quietly thinking about where to live, where to send their kids to school, and whether or not to wear Jewish symbols in public. It’s too late for everyone to see that the community is gone.

This is what I want someone to tell me: If the IHRA definition is too dangerous, too chilling to speech, and too much of a problem for New York City to use, why can the UK use it? What makes Germany different? Why can France (yes, France, even with all its problems) do this with Canada, Australia, and 43 other countries?

Are they all less dedicated to free speech than New York? Are their bureaucrats less smart? Do their Jewish communities somehow deserve clearer rules? Or (and let me just throw this out there) is New York making a political decision that those other countries aren’t?

Is New York deciding that in the progressive stack of 2026, Jewish safety is less important than not upsetting the activist Left? Germany accepted the IHRA definition, knowing what it meant. France adopted it while watching its Jewish population leave. The UK adopted it while dealing with Labour Party scandals involving antisemitism that almost brought the party down. They chose it because they learned the hard way what happens when there aren’t clear rules.

They learned that good intentions, listening sessions, and statements of concern don’t mean anything when Jewish families are trying to decide whether or not to leave. It seems that New York thinks it’s smarter than all of them.

“But he kept the office of antisemitism!” Yes, and France has a whole government department that works to stop antisemitism. There are task forces in Sweden. The UK’s Community Security Trust is one of the most advanced Jewish security groups in the world. None of it stopped the fall.

Do you know why? An office to combat antisemitism without a working definition of antisemitism is like a play. It makes press releases. It can hold listening sessions and make statements of concern, but what is that office supposed to do when a city worker files a discrimination complaint, a student reports harassment, or a Jewish business owner is the target of a boycott campaign?

“We take antisemitism very seriously, but we can’t really define it. So, we’re going to need you to make a really strong case that what you went through wasn’t just a strong political debate about Israeli policy.” That isn’t safety; it’s the government lying to you.

I’ve spoken with French Jews who made complaints that went nowhere, with British Jewish students who stopped reporting harassment because the university process was worse than the harassment itself, and with Swedish Jews who stopped going to community events because it was too hard to deal with the security situation.

All of those countries had offices. There were officials in charge of each of them. They didn’t know what antisemitism was or what would happen if it occurred. This is the choice New York has now made.

They’ll say that the IHRA rollback is about protecting criticism of Israel, not mixing up anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and keeping space for Palestinian solidarity. I’ve heard these same points made in Paris. In Malmö. In Manchester.

Here’s what really happens: The “criticism of Israel” framework becomes a way to treat Jews differently from everyone else. People in France spit on Jewish students as they walk to class, and the reason given is “tensions over Gaza.” A kosher grocery store in Paris is attacked, and people say it’s because of the conflict in the Middle East. We hear that “Israeli policy” is the reason why Jewish schools need armed guards.

The former mayor of Malmö actually told Jews that they should stay away from Israel if they wanted to be safe.

Take a moment to think about that. A European mayor told Jews that their safety depended on their political views. That’s what happens when you say that antisemitism is too complicated to define clearly or that Jewish safety depends on peace talks in the Middle East.

The IHRA definition is intended to make things very clear: You can criticize Israeli policy the same way you can criticize any other country, but you can’t discriminate against Jews. Deny Jews the right to choose for themselves? Antisemitic. Do you believe in blood libels and conspiracy theories? Anti-Jewish.

But that difference is a problem for people whose whole political system is based on treating Israel as uniquely evil and Zionism as a type of racism. They need the line to be less clear. They want “anti-Zionism” to protect them from everything. And New York just gave them that protection.

I know Jewish families from France who moved to London, saw British antisemitism grow, and then moved to New York.

I know British Jews who moved to New York because they thought it would be safer than Manchester or Leeds. They thought America would be different. Because New York was supposed to be different.

In America, “Never Again” used to mean something that it no longer does in Europe. It meant that Jews didn’t have to keep a bag packed, that our kids wouldn’t learn to hide their identities, and that we didn’t have to figure out which subway lines and neighborhoods were safe.

Those families are watching what Mamdani just did and talking about it over dinner. The same things their parents and grandparents talked about in Germany. In Poland. In the UK.

“Maybe it’s time to think about going.” Not today. Not tomorrow. But the math has changed.

This is what people don’t get about Jewish communities: We’re the canary in the coal mine, but we’re also the only canary that’s been here before. A lot of times. We can tell what the air smells like before it gets too bad to breathe.

In 2005, Europeans didn’t believe French Jews when they said things were getting worse. In 2010, they didn’t believe Swedish Jews. In 2015, they didn’t believe British Jews. They believe them now, when it’s too late, when the communities are destroyed, when the synagogues are empty, and when Jewish life has shrunk to a few heavily guarded buildings in city centers. American Jews are raising the alarm now. In New York. In the biggest city with Jews outside of Israel. And the answer is to make it harder to define antisemitism.

To the new mayor of New York, I want to say this: You’re still young. You claim to be open-minded. You probably think that comparing America to Europe is too much, that New York is different, and that America is special. You might be right. I really hope you are.

The mayors of French cities, on the other hand, thought they were different too. Swedish politicians thought that their social democratic values would keep Jewish communities safe. British officials thought their laws against hate crimes were good enough. They were all wrong. The only thing that sets places where Jewish communities are growing apart from places where they are disappearing is institutional clarity. Definitions that are clear. Consistent enforcement. The message that Jewish safety is not up for discussion.

You just sent the wrong message.

Tell everyone about it. Get it working. Make sure it really works when a Jewish city worker goes to HR with a complaint, when a Jewish student says they are being harassed, or when a Jewish family asks if their neighborhood is safe.

And if you can’t do that (if all you can say is “we’ll talk” or “we’ll reach an agreement”), then say what you’ve really done: You put New York on the same path that led to the emptying of Malmö’s synagogue, the same path that put armed guards outside Jewish schools in France, the same path that caused more than a dozen Australian Jews to be massacred on Hanukkah, just weeks ago.

You told two million Jews that you could change your mind about protecting them. I hope I’m wrong. I really, really hope I’m wrong about all of this. I don’t think New York is France. I really hope it’s not Sweden. I hope it’s not the parts of Australia where Jewish families are thinking of leaving.

I hope Mamdani makes an announcement about a new framework next week. I hope this was just a mistake in the process. I hope that in 10 years, Jewish New Yorkers will look back on this time and laugh at how worried we all were.

But I have been paying attention. I’ve seen this happen before. And everything I’ve learned tells me that Jews should start paying attention to the exits when institutions start treating their safety as optional. The biggest Jewish city outside of Israel just made protecting Jews a matter of political choice instead of civic duty.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And right now, I can hear a song that sounds very familiar.