New York Metropolis mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Expensive Mayor-Elect Mamdani,
There isn’t any sugar coating that we have now deep and real disagreements on the problems that we at American Jewish Committee (AJC) prioritize. I imagine it is important to clarify our views, particularly as they’re tied to security, inclusion, and ethical accountability.
You don’t imagine in Israel’s proper to exist as a Jewish state. We do.
You don’t condemn Hamas clearly and persistently as a terrorist group. We do.
You don’t denounce the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” that requires violence towards Israel and people who assist Israel. We do.
We might not be capable to change your thoughts on these points. Nevertheless, we might be vigilant in making certain that New York Metropolis authorities and your place as mayor should not used to carry Israel to a double commonplace or to try to isolate Israel economically in an effort to dismantle the world’s solely Jewish state.
Regardless of our disagreements, the foremost query now’s bigger and extra rapid: What’s going to you do to guard New York’s Jews?
Our neighborhood has been the sufferer of direct and lethal violence within the streets. We’ve got seen Jews attacked in Midtown for carrying a kippah and subjected to a violent, anti-Israel protest outdoors of synagogues. They’ve been harassed for carrying an Israeli flag, and murdered elsewhere within the nation, together with outdoors of certainly one of AJC’s occasions, for no motive aside from being Jewish. These assaults are private to us and we all know how simply they’re fueled by rhetoric that dehumanizes Israel and, by extension, Jews.
As town’s highest elected official, your phrases will carry weight throughout each neighborhood and past town’s limits. They will calm tensions, or inflame them.
Hate crimes towards Jews have surged in New York since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 – about one per day on common. In line with the NYPD, antisemitic incidents have accounted for greater than half of all hate crimes within the metropolis for a number of years operating. Issues round antisemitic violence have formed how Jewish New Yorkers dwell, journey, and worship.
Your pledge to quadruple funding to fight hate crimes is commendable. That funding should be deployed strategically and used to assist regulation enforcement and neighborhood partnerships. We hope you’ll comply with via in your said intent to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, as her regular management and professionalism have strengthened New Yorkers’ confidence of their security.
These are the actions of a mayor who understands the safety wants of our metropolis.
As you understand, New York is house to the most important Jewish inhabitants outdoors Israel. That actuality provides your administration a non-negotiable accountability: to guard Jewish security, defend Jewish establishments, and affirm via deeds—not solely phrases—that Jewish life is an inseparable a part of this metropolis’s identification.
We’ll have interaction along with your administration when partnership serves the pursuits of Jewish New Yorkers and the broader good of town. We may even converse out boldly when conscience calls for it.
Your previous assist for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) motion, aimed toward isolating and dismantling Israel – even undermining establishments like Cornell Tech due to their Israeli partnerships – raises severe considerations. Cornell Tech has been a major driver of town’s know-how sector and serves as a conduit for groundbreaking analysis that may profit thousands and thousands. That mission shouldn’t be diminished by unabashed anti-Zionism.
In case you use that energy to advance insurance policies that isolate Israel or penalize those that have interaction with it, we’ll converse out forcefully and publicly.
AJC – as we have now carried out prior to now and across the nation – will oppose any try and embed BDS practices in metropolis governance to make sure our metropolis by no means turns into a platform for financial warfare towards the Jewish state
You’ll quickly lead a metropolis whose power lies in its range and its decency. That range features a vibrant Jewish neighborhood that expects its mayor to guard it with out hesitation. We’ll enter this new chapter with open eyes and agency objective. The stakes for Jewish New Yorkers and for the ethical cloth of this metropolis couldn’t be greater.
Josh Kramer is Director of American Jewish Committee New York.
