New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani toured the Jewish Children’s Museum in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn on Monday — accompanied by the police commissioner, the local city councilmember and a co-founder of the museum’s, but no press or local religious leaders.

The mayor’s stop was first reported by Chabad community news site COLlive, which shared a photo of him entering the building alongside NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and inside the lobby with Tisch and Councilmember Crystal Hudson. In another image was Devorah Halberstam, one of the museum’s founders, who COLlive reported provided a “closed-door tour.”

The mayor’s daily schedule released Sunday night said only that Mamdani would visit “a Children’s Museum” in a 1 p.m. slot, and noted it was closed to the press.

Halberstam told Jewish Insider she connected with the mayor following the car-ramming of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters, which sits a few hundred feet from the museum and serves as the spiritual center of the neighborhood, and that a meeting had been in the works since before Passover. During his visit Monday, she said she and the mayor discussed her son Ari, a 16-year-old yeshiva student murdered in an antisemitic shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994, in whose honor she founded the museum in 2004.

Halberstam said that she took the mayor through a floor of the museum dedicated to Jewish holidays, and characterized him as a “very good listener” and “a work in progress” on issues of concern to the Jewish community, particularly the kind of hate and terror incidents that took the life of her son.

“Hopefully there will be movement in different directions. And I hope to help him along with doing that as it applies to the Jewish community,” Halberstam told JI. “He’s young, he’s new to this, he’s on a learning curve, but he definitely wants to learn.”

A source from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement said they were unaware of the mayor’s visit, as did Rabbi Chanina Sperlin of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council. Sperlin, however, noted that the museum was Halberstam’s “baby” and that she was the community leader most involved with it.

Mamdani’s office did not respond to questions from Jewish Insider about the mayor’s visit. However, he shared a photospray from the visit on X, along with praise for Halberstam.

“Devorah Halberstam has spent her life advocating for the safety and well-being of Jewish New Yorkers,” the tweet from the mayor’s official account reads, noting that May is Jewish American Heritage Month. “We discussed the importance of ensuring this city remains a place where Jewish history can be celebrated and shared with everyone — including young New Yorkers. This Jewish American Heritage Month, we honor the rich culture and history that Jewish New Yorkers contribute to our city daily.”

Halberstam has served in a number of public roles, including currently as honorary commissioner of community affairs and chair of the Hate Crime Review Panel at the NYPD. Former Mayor Eric Adams appointed her chair of the board of commissioners at the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.

The first mayor to seek a relationship with the museum was Michael Bloomberg, who also supported it financially.

A man drove a Honda Accord sedan “intentionally and repeatedly” into an entryway of the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn Wednesday night, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed.

The NYPD responded to an 8:46 911 call on Wednesday at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, the home and center of leadership of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, now a major spiritual, symbolic and organizational hub for Chabad. No persons were injured in the incident, captured on video, and police took the driver into custody. 

“We’re grateful to the Almighty that no one was hurt,” said Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad, adding that damage initially appeared limited. “It houses one of the most significant synagogues in the Jewish world.”

Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch went to the scene in the hours following the incident, and a Chabad source told Jewish Insider that the White House reached out and reported that it was monitoring the situation. Tisch said at a press conference outside 770 later Wednesday night that the incident is being investigated as a hate crime and that the NYPD bomb squad had searched the vehicle, finding no explosive devices.

“This is deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world. Any threat to a Jewish institution or place of worship must be taken seriously. Antisemitism has no place in our city, and violence or intimidation against Jewish New Yorkers is unacceptable,” Mamdani wrote on X shortly after the incident.

“I stand in solidarity with the Crown Heights Jewish community, and I am grateful to our first responders for taking swift action. I will keep New Yorkers updated as we learn more about the incident.”

Chabad’s social media editor, Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, whose son was in the synagogue at the time of the incident, said “Antisemitism does not appear to be a factor in this.”

City Council Speaker Julie Menin also reached out to the institution, and many other New York officials shared concern and sympathy on social media. “This is horrific. These acts of violence against our Jewish communities, and any of our communities, need to stop. Now,” New York Attorney General Letitia James posted on X.

New York City Comptroller Mark Levine noted that the “frightening” incident took place on Yud Shevat, a date in the Hebrew calendar of great significance to the Chabad community, when “large numbers are gathering in the neighborhood.” An event taking place from 7:30-8:30 p.m., just before the time of the attack, was expected to draw thousands of young men to the site.

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that “while [a] motive cannot yet be confirmed, this incident contributes even further to a collective sense of anxiety for Jewish New Yorkers and Jews worldwide.”

The New York Police Department is investigating a brutal attack against a 64-year-old rabbi in Crown Heights on Tuesday as a hate crime. 

Rabbi Avraham Gopin, the father-in-law of hassidic singer Benny Friedman, was reportedly jogging through Lincoln Terrace Park in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning when a man threw a rock at him. Gopin confronted the man, who in turn punched him in the face, and then hit him with a large rock, knocking out two teeth and causing facial injuries. 

The incident is just the latest in an ongoing string of attacks against Jews in New York City. The most recent NYPD statistics show a 52 percent increase in antisemitic attacks (90-146 incidents) compared with the same period last year. 

In an interview with Jewish Insider, Councilman Chaim Deutsch, chairman of the NYC Jewish Caucus, blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for not coming through with his pledge to rush the creation of mayoral office for the prevention of hate crimes. Earlier this year, a bill requiring educational outreach within the office of prevention of hate crimes was passed by the City Council, and slated to be implemented towards the end of the year. 

But in remarks at the annual Jewish American Heritage Month reception at Gracie Mansion in June, de Blasio declared the immediate opening of the office to combat the rise in antisemitism. But little action appears to have been taken on the issue.

“We are already in August, and I still haven’t heard anything about it being active or anyone being hired,” Deutsch said. “The commitment was made by the mayor that he’s going to have this open by June. We are waiting for this [to be] implemented.” 

The Brooklyn lawmaker suggested the mayor should not neglect city business due to his presidential campaign.

“Whether he is here or not, de Blasio should make sure that his administration is on top of things, especially when he had made that commitment to open the office in June,” he stressed. “We are in a moment where we need to tackle these issues head on. We can’t just ignore them thinking it’s going to go away. The mayor needs to realize that if he makes a commitment, he needs to make good on it.”  

Deutsch also said he is in favor of enacting hate crime laws, but they should be passed by the state legislatures.

In response to the JI report, Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s press secretary, said the hate crimes office was never scheduled to open in June.

“Setting the record straight: we never committed to open the office in June,” Goldstein tweeted. “We promised to move up the November deadline set by the Council’s bill, which we’re doing. More to say in the coming days.”

This article was updated at 9:45am eastern time.