New York City’s two highest-ranking Jewish local officials turned down the opportunity to condemn Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s controversial comments on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — even as their fellow Democrats railed against him — at a rally supporting a memorial to the Hamas victims.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin and City Comptroller Mark Levine both turned out for an event organized by state Sen. Sam Sutton to advocate the establishment of a privately funded monument in a small Brooklyn park honoring those killed or abducted three years ago in the attacks. In their formal remarks, the pair deplored Hamas’ violence, and Levine even called a single heckler’s repeated cries of “free Palestine” during his address “very disappointing.”

But pressed by Jewish Insider and other reporters about Mamdani’s statement earlier in the day, which gave greater space to condemnations of Israel’s military response than to the attack that provoked it, neither would expressly criticize him.

“Look, I’m focused on Oct. 7 and memorializing the 1,200 people who were murdered by Hamas terrorists. I think the focus needs to be on Oct. 7, full stop,” Menin told JI as she headed for her city vehicle after speaking.

She would only reiterate this point about “focus” when JI pressed if the mayor’s statement was appropriate to the occasion.

Levine made a near-identical statement.

“Today needs to be about the victims of Oct. 7 — today of all days. And I want everyone to come together for one day to focus on the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust,” Levine told JI. “That is my message, it’s one that I hope all leaders would also deliver to their communities.”

"Today needs to be about the victims of Oct. 7." Asked by JI’s @WillBredderman about Mamdani’s statement on the Hamas attacks that assailed the "genocide in Gaza," NYC Comptroller Mark Levine said, "I want everyone to lower the temperature." Read more: https://t.co/Oyc4fzdhIB https://t.co/sp28wez7sO

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) October 7, 2026

Asked if he had a specific message for the mayor, Levine again spoke only generally.

“I want everyone here to lower the temperature, to bring people together, and today more than any day to focus on the victims of this horrific attack,” he said, adding after further prompting, “I think his statement speaks for itself. And I issued my own statement. I think it’s pretty clear where I stand.”

The Manhattan politicians’ statements contrasted dramatically with those of Sutton, a conservative Democrat and longtime leader in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community.

“There are those that check off a box by saying the line that Oct. 7 was a tragedy, and then they go on and on,” Sutton said, calling out the Democratic Socialists of America and the rally they promoted in Times Square one day after the attack. “Listen, DSA members, you guys celebrated on Oct. 8 when not one Palestinian was killed, but Israeli civilians were killed. Stop lying. The truth must be told.”

Joey Cohen-Saban, Sutton’s chief of staff and Democratic district leader — an unpaid but important role in the Brooklyn party organization — went further.

“The fact that [Mamdani] includes such disgusting remarks in a statement that’s allegedly supposed to remember victims of Oct. 7 shows again that he is inherently antisemitic, and that’s something that he just continues to prove over and over and over again,” Saban, now a candidate for state Assembly, told JI.