New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused on Monday to answer questions about a Brooklyn Democratic leader who promoted Henry Ford’s The International Jew and blamed a property dispute on “Zionists.”

Following an unrelated event in Queens, the mayor refused to answer on three separate occasions when Jewish Insider pressed him about Carmella Charrington, elected in June to the unpaid but important role of Democratic district leader. As first reported by JI, Charrington shared an Instagram video last fall boosting the notorious pamphlet series by the founder of the Ford Motor Company, a clip that blamed Jewish people for a range of societal maladies from slavery to the proliferation of alcohol and drugs.

Charrington first rose to prominence over a dispute over control of her family home, describing herself as a victim of deed theft, while New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ office found that the battle over her brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant was simply a complicated dispute over the estate of her Alzheimer’s-stricken father. Charrington has attacked the Jewish investors involved as “Zionists” and suggested some link between her situation and Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

After publication, Mamdani’s team reached out with a statement addressing Charrington’s attacks on the property investors.

“Suggesting that an alleged deed theft in Brooklyn is part of a global conspiracy involving Jewish people is blatant, reprehensible antisemitism,” the statement said. “Trafficking in these dangerous antisemitic tropes is vile and inexcusable.”

However, the administration did not answer a follow-up question about whether the mayor believed Charrington should step aside from her district leader role.

JI’s reporting on Charrington’s antisemitic posts prompted condemnations from James and from New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, though neither has called for her to step aside from her district leader position. 

Meanwhile Democrats aligned with Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Rodneyse Bichotte — whom Charrington and her slate aim to remove — have demanded Charrington’s resignation.

“Jewish New Yorkers are being attacked. Synagogues are being targeted. Public officials have a duty to lower the temperature and not amplify rhetoric that endangers their neighbors,” district leader and Assembly candidate Joey Cohen-Saban wrote last week on X. “Charrington has repeatedly crossed that line without remorse. She is unfit for public office and must resign. Every Brooklyn Democratic leader and anyone seeking to lead this party must say so clearly and unequivocally. No excuses. No equivocation. Period.”

Charrington was elected to party leadership during the Mamdani-aligned progressive wave in June, with support from leading figures in the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, all with the aim of ousting Bichotte from power. Bichotte has controversially proposed changes to the Brooklyn Democratic organization’s internal leadership selection process that might let her retain power, despite several of her candidates for district leader losing in June. 

Unlike with Charrington, Mamdani was not shy with his opinion about the local party leader and her machinations.

“I very much oppose these proposed changes by the current Brooklyn Democratic Party chair,” Mamdani said. “They are an attempt to circumnavigate the will of voters and what we should see is a reflection of what New Yorkers want to see in their home, as opposed to a representation of so much of what has led New Yorkers to become — and Americans to become — disengaged and disaffected in politics at large.”

Julio Peña, the favorite to replace Bichotte, has issued only a general condemnation of antisemitism but has refused to directly address the remarks from Charrington, with whom he ran on a slate. 

Charrington won her race with backing from key figures in the Democratic Socialists of America, state Sen. Jabari Brisport and state Assembly nominee Eon Huntley. On her Instagram account last November, Charrington declared the video — which also urged viewers to watch a notorious Swedish neo-Nazi documentary and read Holocaust denial literature — “the truth” and asserted, “This better be the topic at the table.” In a subsequent conversation with JI, she told a reporter to “get your rabbi” for a “roundtable” she planned to hold on a “bullying community.”

However, she later issued an apology for the video in a statement to The New York Times.

This story was updated on Aug. 24 with a statement from Mamdani’s office.