Prominent Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch left a meeting on Thursday afternoon with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and a dozen diverse rabbis and community leaders feeling “encouraged,” saying that there is “reason to be optimistic” that Mamdani will protect the Jewish community.  

Still, given Mamdani’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America and antagonistic views on Israel — including his refusal to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” —  Hirsch told Jewish Insider there remains “reason for the New York Jewish community to be anxious about Israel and safety.”

“I hope that our concerns will be proven to be less acute given the mayor-elect’s behavior in office, but we’ll have to wait and see,” said Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Upper West Side’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and a self-described liberal who voiced opposition to Mamdani throughout the mayoral election. 

Hirsch, who spoke with JI following the mayor-elect’s private meeting with the New York Board of Rabbis, of which Hirsch is the president, said he was “encouraged by [Mamdani’s] willingness to continue to dialogue, knowing in advance that he’s going into meetings with people who have significant disagreements with him, and that he continues to be open to having these kinds of discussions.”

“That’s good for the New York Jewish community,” he continued. “I wasn’t surprised that this meeting happened because I think he is making an effort to reach out to as many representatives, particularly in the Jewish community, as he can. I think he’s trying to do that for his own sense of what is in his political interest and the well-being of the Jewish community. There’s reason to be optimistic.” 

The meeting was held just weeks before Mamdani’s Jan. 1 inauguration — and as the Jewish community remains divided about his victory. Hirsch was among the leading Jewish voices expressing concern during Mamdani’s election over his hostility toward Israel. Hirsch also publicly expressed frustration with the lack of organized effort among Jewish leaders to oppose the then-candidate. Days before the election, he told JI that opposition to Mamdani is a Jewish “imperative.” 

Hirsch declined to share the content of Thursday’s meeting, but called it “productive.” 

“The mayor-elect stayed a little longer than anticipated so we were pleased with that,” he told JI. “He listened attentively. We shared our concerns. We agreed that we’ll set up a mechanism to meet regularly with him and his senior staff so we can keep lines of communication open. We agreed to keep content and details confidential.”  

Ahead of the meeting, invitees told CNN that several rabbis planned to “propose a unified agenda, asking Mamdani to back away from his rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” and his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Some Jewish leaders also said they “will put pressure on other New York officials like Gov. Kathy Hochul and incoming city council speaker Julie Menin to not work with Mamdani more broadly if he follows through on promised anti-Israel moves and doesn’t provide more reassurances to Jews in the city.” 

In addition to Hirsch, other rabbis in attendance on Thursday, according to CNN, included Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-El, a Reform synagogue; and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Modern Orthodox Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue.  

“It’s in the interest of the Jewish community to keep an open line of communication with [Mamdani],” said Hirsch. “He’s a talented politician and very charismatic. You can understand how he was able to connect with people. I hope, for our sake and the sake of New York generally, he will pursue the policy matters that he ran on and not focus on things that happen overseas.” 

On Wednesday night, Mamdani — wearing a kippah — attended an event hosted by the Satmar Hasidic movement in Brooklyn marking Kuf Alef Kislev, an annual celebration of the Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum’s escape from the Nazis in 1944. The New York City Satmar movement, which is anti-Zionist, was split over its endorsement of Mamdani during the election.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he would visit New York City despite Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s threat to have him arrested on war crimes charges if he does so.

Asked by host Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, taking place in New York, about Mamdani’s threat to fulfill a warrant issued last year by the International Criminal Court — to which the U.S. is not a party — Netanyahu, speaking via video from Jerusalem, scoffed and said, “I’ll come to New York.”

As to whether he would meet with Mamdani, Netanyahu said: “If he changes his mind and says we [Israel] have a right to exist, that’ll be a good opening for a conversation.” Audible laughter at his response could be heard from the audience.

Netanyahu also addressed one of the major political news stories of the week — his request to Israeli President Isaac Herzog for a pardon amid his yearslong corruption trial.

“What [President Donald Trump] calls a witch hunt — and it is — has been going on for 10 years … I’m supposed to spend three days a week, eight hours a day in that trial, and I have got a few other things to do,” the prime minister quipped.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2020 in three cases: for allegedly advancing the interests of Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan while accepting gifts from him; for allegedly negotiating with Yediot Aharonot publisher Arnon Mozes to outlaw rival newspaper Israel Hayom’s free business model in exchange for favorable coverage; and for allegedly accepting a bribe of positive media coverage on news site Walla in exchange for regulatory changes benefitting then-Bezeq Telecom owner Shaul Elovitch.

Netanyahu noted in his remarks that the judges overseeing the trial suggested that the prosecution drop the bribery charge, said Walla never stopped covering him negatively, and dismissed the rest of the charges — fraud and breach of trust — as “a Bugs Bunny doll, champagne and cigars.” 

The prime minister said that Israeli law does not require him to admit guilt when requesting a pardon, “and I don’t. It’s a nonsense trial. … It’s a joke. It’s so silly, so stupid.” 

Netanyahu argued a pardon is “right for the country, right for our future. There are a lot of tasks at hand.”

“I think history beckons. We have opportunities for peace, enormous opportunities in AI and quantum [computing] … We have the opportunity to seize the future in a way that can help the entire Middle East and the world,” he added.

The race to replace New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill in her northern New Jersey district, an affluent, suburban area with a sizable Jewish population, has attracted around a dozen Democratic candidates from a wide array of backgrounds. But three Jewish leaders in the state plugged into the local political scene say they see Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill as the likely front-runner in the 11th Congressional District, with former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) as a formidable candidate as well. 

The primary election is set for Feb. 5, with a general election on April 16.

Gill, a former aide to Gov. Phil Murphy, has been endorsed by the outgoing governor, and is considered the leading Democrat, the Jewish leaders said, because he’s a well-known and well-liked figure in the district, has the backing of the Democratic Party establishment, entered the race relatively early and has long been seen as an up-and-coming leader in the area.

He’s also been working aggressively to secure supporters and donors, two leaders said.

But he could also face attacks over his role as Murphy’s campaign manager in 2017, when he faced allegations by a top campaign aide who accused Gill of running a “toxic” workplace, attempting to push her out of the campaign, of misogynistic behavior toward her and other female campaign staff and of using a misogynistic slur in an argument with her. Gill denies those allegations.

Malinowski is a known quantity from his three terms in Congress and has been endorsed by Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) as a counterweight to the New Jersey political machine — but there’s only partial overlap between Malinowski’s former House district and the neighboring seat he’s running in now, setting up potential attacks on him as an outsider.

“Malinowski is a legitimate, serious candidate. He’s in the mix. I would not rule him out. He’s a well-known name. He’s got the history here. He’s deeply connected,” one leader said. “If I had to gauge it right now, I would say Gill one, and [Malinowski] two.”

They also noted that the limits of Murphy’s influence were clear in Kim’s election in the Senate race, in which he garnered more statewide party support than Tammy Murphy, the wife of the current governor, who dropped her bid before the primary.

One Jewish leader said that, given his ties to Murphy and their ideological alignment, Gill would likely be a reliable supporter of the Jewish community, as Murphy generally has been. The leader noted that Gill had also worked in the past with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and the late  Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), both of whom were strong supporters of Israel.

“I think you’ll see someone who is a practical, thoughtful person in their engagement with the Jewish community,” they said.

But two other Jewish community leaders noted that Gill’s wife, a state representative, has raised concerns among some in the community.

Assemblywoman Alixon Collazos-Gill attended a Palestinian flag raising event in Clifton, N.J., which featured denunciations of Israel, accusations that Israel was committing genocide and deliberately inflicting famine in Gaza and calls for “no money for wars.”

Collazos-Gill, who has attended flag raising events for various other communities in Clifton as well, posted on Facebook after the event, “I was moved by the sense of community, love and resilience. Thank you Clifton for the kind invitation and the Palestinian community that organized the event.”

She was also critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, an anti-Israel activist at Columbia University. “So many things are at stake: due process, freedom of speech, the right to peacefully protest, democracy. This is a warning that this can happen to any non-citizen. We should all be concerned,” she posted on Facebook.

She was also endorsed by the New Jersey branch of the Working Families Party, which at the national level has accused Israel of mass starvation in Israel and called for the U.S. to condition aid to the Jewish state. It supported an immediate ceasefire in Gaza two weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

And she attended a meet-and-greet event in May at the invitation of prominent members of the Palestinian American Community Center, a local Palestinian group. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) urged the Department of Justice to investigate the group in April for hosting an alleged affiliate of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at its annual conference. In social media comments, an organizer of the meet and greet emphasized that it had occurred off-site and was not formally affiliated with the PACC, a nonprofit group.

Collazos-Gill was vague about what was discussed in a Facebook post, but thanked the two PACC members for “inviting me to join you in these meaningful conversations about the issues that matter most to you.”

Gill’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The Jewish leader who praised Gill said they had spoken to Collazos-Gill recently and didn’t hear her express any anti-Israel sentiments, and said she had indicated an interest in cultivating relationships with the Jewish community. They also noted that Collazos-Gill is sponsoring legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

“Regardless, I do think Brendan is a supporter of Israel and the Jewish community as his own person,” the leader continued.

While in Congress, Malinowski was generally a reliable supporter of Israel and a voice against antisemitism, but some of his views towards Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, have raised skepticism in the Jewish community, one leader noted.

In public interviews, he expressed support last year for President Joe Biden’s moves to pressure Israel against entering the Gaza city of Rafah by withholding some arms shipments.

Also in the race is Jeff Grayzel, the deputy mayor of Morris Township, N.J., and a leader in his local Jewish community relations council and federation. While Jewish leaders praised Grayzel and said he’d be a strong voice for Jewish community priorities — one described him as clearly the strongest advocate on those issues — they were skeptical that he would have a path to victory against better-known figures such as Gill and Malinowski.

Grayzel, speaking to JI last week, pushed back, arguing that neither Malinowski nor Gill are particularly well-known in the district. 

He predicted that Malinowski and Gill, training their fire at each other will provide an opportunity for other candidates to emerge, and that the wide field will mean that a fairly low vote percentage is needed to win.

Grayzel outlined a path to victory that includes winning Morris County, where he lives and which makes up 40% of the district, as well as picking up the substantial Jewish vote in Essex County.

“People are sick and tired of politics as usual,” Grayzel said. “I think I have the message that’s going to resound the most with the voters, coming at it as a [former] mayor who has literally solved problems, who’s delivered results for his community.”

The Jewish community, Grayzel added, will “have to come out and vote. … If Jews are sick and tired of antisemitism, if Jews are tired of how Israel has been treated, the answer to that is to vote.”

Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way also entered the race, but the Jewish leaders largely said they do not see her as a strong contender, given that she entered the race late and is not particularly well-known, despite her statewide position.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, rolled out an extensive list of more than 400 new transition team appointees on Monday, saying the picks would help “recruit top talent and develop smart policy” on such issues as housing, community safety and economic development.

Despite the wide diversity of his choices, some of the appointees have raised concerns among Jewish leaders who remain skeptical of the mayor-elect and his commitment to fighting antisemitism, especially in moments where anti-Israel sentiment can cross a line into overt bigotry against Jews.

Among the most controversial sources of criticism was Mamdani’s appointment of Tamika Mallory, a former Women’s March leader who stepped down from its board amid allegations of antisemitism, to a newly established community safety committee.

Mallory, who rose to prominence as a leading organizer of the Women’s March after President Donald Trump was first elected, resigned from her role as a co-chair of the organization after facing accusations of having made virulently antisemitic remarks, including a widely discredited claim that Jewish people had played a major part in the slave trade.

The assertion echoed an infamous tract published by the Nation of Islam, whose antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, Mallory had also praised as “the GOAT,” or “greatest of all time,” on social media. 

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League, which launched an online tool to monitor policies and personnel choices of the incoming administration, called Mallory “simply the wrong choice for a committee on community safety” and said that she has “made some highly insensitive remarks about Jews and money, which play directly into antisemitic tropes,” while aligning “herself with people like notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan.”

“Given the fact that New York’s Jewish community is facing antisemitism and security threats at unprecedented levels, the mayor-elect needs to appoint someone who will unite, rather than divide, communities.” the ADL spokesperson said.

In 2020, Mamdani called on social media for Mallory to be released from custody after she and others were arrested during a social justice demonstration in Kentucky. Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American activist and former Women’s March leader who also has espoused antisemitic rhetoric, has long been an ally of Mamdani, but was not appointed to a role on any of his transition committees.

Monica Klein, the communications director for Mamdani’s transition, said in a statement shared with JI on Tuesday that the newly announced “subcommittees are preparing to implement Mayor-elect Mamdani’s agenda of safety and security for Jewish New Yorkers and everyone else who calls this city home, including his pledge for an 800% increase in anti-hate crime prevention.”

Mallory did not respond to a request for comment.

After the appointees were publicized Monday, Jewish leaders were scouring the lists in group chats and private texts for signs of how the newly elected mayor, a democratic socialist and staunch critic of Israel, would approach issues of concern to the community.

“There are a lot of bad names,” one Jewish leader told JI, sharing screenshots of exchanges flagging some transition picks seen as problematic, such as an anti-Zionist rabbi and activists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, which is pushing Mamdani to divest from Israel when he takes office.

Other appointees who drew scrutiny were Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who has called for an end to policing and will advise on community safety. 

The list included a number of outspoken detractors of Israel. Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer and a former candidate for Manhattan district attorney who, like Mamdani, has endorsed boycotts against the Jewish state, will provide input on legal affairs. Lumumba Bandele, a member and organizer of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement who is joining the community organizing team, has frequently accused Israel of genocide as well as apartheid, while calling Zionism “a crime against humanity,” among several other incendiary social media comments.

The tolerance of such heated rhetoric underscores how Mamdani’s election upended the conventional thinking that a winning candidate in New York — a place with the largest Jewish community of any city in the world — must show strong support for Israel, emboldening like-minded allies who are now poised to shape the administration. 

Still, some Jewish leaders were encouraged that Mamdani had chosen Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, to join an emergency response committee, despite his past criticism of the mayor-elect’s views on Israel.

Potasnik, who was recently named the first chief chaplain of the New York City Police Department, said he had “no specifics” to share about his role at the moment, noting that Mamdani’s representatives advised new appointees to direct any press requests to the transition team. 

“There are going to be meetings discussing what we’re expected to do,” Potasnik told JI broadly. “I just think that it’s important to have constructive engagement discussing important issues impacting our lives in New York.”

Potasnik was a member of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’ transition team, which featured more than 700 members and leaned heavily on the Orthodox community.

Mamdani, for his part, named a handful of rabbis to join his transition team, including Abby Stein, a top Jewish ally who identifies as an anti-Zionist and will advise on health issues, and Rachel Timoner, who is the leader of Congregation Beth Elohim, a Brooklyn Reform synagogue that hosted a discussion with the mayor-elect during the campaign. She is serving on the immigrant justice committee.

In addition to clergy members, Mamdani tapped a pair of former Jewish lawmakers, Helen Rosenthal and Ruth Messinger, and community activists such as Masha Pearl of the Blue Card Fund, a nonprofit providing financial support for Holocaust survivors. 

Rabbi Marc Schneier, a critic of Mamdani, spoke with the mayor-elect late last week after protesters had demonstrated outside Park East Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation in Manhattan led by his father. 

He said that Mamdani — who had drawn backlash over his initial statement on the protest, which he revised this week — voiced interest in learning more about legislation to bar demonstrations from taking place outside houses of worship.

But while Schneier was encouraged that Mamdani had been receptive to his recommendation, he told JI that he did “not see things changing” with respect to other key issues, such as the mayor-elect’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

“If he continues to encircle himself with people who are going to support his limited understanding of Israel,” he said, “then we’re going to have a problem here.”

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, distanced himself from a widely criticized demonstration outside a prominent synagogue in Manhattan on Wednesday night, where anti-Israel protesters were heard chanting “Death to the IDF” and “Globalize the intifada,” among other slogans, even as he suggested that the event, which provided information on immigrating to Israel, violated international law.

“The mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” a spokesperson for Mamdani, Dora Pekec, said in a statement to Jewish Insider on Thursday. “He believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”   

The protest, organized by an anti-Zionist group, took place outside Park East Synagogue, a historic Modern Orthodox congregation, at which an event was being held by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a nonprofit that assists in Jewish immigration to Israel from North America.

Asked to clarify the concluding caveat from Pekec’s statement, Mamdani’s team said it “was specifically in reference to the organization’s promotion of settlement activity beyond the Green Line,” which “violates international law.”

Mamdani’s election has alarmed many Jews in New York City concerned with rising antisemitic activity and how he will respond to such incidents as mayor. He has called for increasing city funding to counter hate crimes as well as boosting police protection at Jewish institutions, vowing to protect Jewish New Yorkers.  

But while he has said he would discourage the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which critics see as a violent provocation against Jews, Mamdani has not condemned the slogan himself, provoking questions about his tolerance for such rhetoric as he prepares to take office. 

The comment from his spokesperson on Thursday was the first instance in which his team responded to unrest related to an anti-Israel protest, many of which he himself attended before he launched his campaign a year ago. A day after he was elected, the mayor-elect condemned vandalism at a Jewish day school that was defaced with swastika graffiti.

For his part, outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who is now traveling outside of the country on a multiday tour that included a stop in Israel, also weighed in on the demonstration in a social media post, where he denounced the chants as “vile” and the protesters as “sick and warped.”

He said he would be “stopping at Park East to show” his “support” after he returns from his international excursion.

“Pray for our city,” he said. “Today it’s a synagogue. Tomorrow it’s a church or a mosque. They come for me today and you tomorrow. We cannot hand this city over to radicals.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani, also condemned the protest. “No New Yorker should be intimidated or harassed at their house of worship,” she said on social media. “What happened last night at Park East Synagogue was shameful and a blatant attack on the Jewish community. Hate has no place in New York.”

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, is facing scrutiny for reportedly throwing his support behind a local state Assembly candidate with a record of controversial remarks about 9/11, Israel and other related topics.

Aber Kawas, a Palestinian American activist running for an open Assembly seat in a largely Hispanic Queens district, came under the spotlight this week after several of her past online posts and comments resurfaced. 

Mamdani’s decision to privately endorse Kawas, which was reported by The New York Daily News, underscores the depth of his hostility toward Israel, as he flexes his newfound political capital to boost a candidate whose extreme views are already stirring backlash.

In one widely circulated online video clip from 2017, Kawas downplayed the 9/11 attacks and suggested they paled in comparison to what she characterized as a “long trajectory” of capitalism, racism, white supremacy and Islamophobia that “have all been used to colonize lands” and “take resources from other people.”

“The idea that we have to apologize for a terror attack that a couple people did,” she said of 9/11, “and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera, is something that I kind of find reprehensible.”

Kawas, who is in her early 30s and has long been active in Arab and Muslim organizing in New York City, also wrote a series of now-deleted blog posts in which she expressed solidarity with a man convicted of providing material support to al-Qaida as well as a group of Hamas-linked Muslim activists known as the Holy Land Five — whom she called “imprisoned heros.”

In another post in 2013, Kawas, commemorating the anniversary of the Nakba recognizing the mass displacement of Palestinians during the founding of Israel in 1948, also lamented “the day that the British Empire gave control of the land of Palestine to European Zionists who created a state based on the ethnic cleansing, murder, displacement, and occupation of millions of indigenous Palestinians in the area.”

Kawas is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel and was involved in efforts to promote failed legislation led by Mamdani that sought to strip Jewish nonprofits of their tax-exempt status, according to a candidate questionnaire solicited by the Democratic Socialists of America, which is reportedly moving to back her campaign.

Elsewhere in the questionnaire, which was shared with Jewish Insider this week, Kawas said she would “refrain from any and all affiliation with the Israeli government and Zionist lobby groups” such as AIPAC and J Street, a left-wing organization that has defended Mamdani. 

The DSA did not respond to a request for comment, and Kawas could not be reached on Wednesday.

Mamdani, for his part, shares Kawas’ approach to Israel as a longtime supporter of BDS, which he has indicated he could seek to uphold as mayor. He has previously praised the Holy Land Five in a 2017 rap song that drew criticism during the election. As an undergrad at Bowdoin College, where he founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, he also ended a brief partnership with J Street U, citing a policy of anti-normalization precluding engagement with groups that support Israel.

While he moderated on a number of issues over the course of his campaign, including a pledge to retain Jessica Tisch as police commissioner that assuaged some concerns among Jewish voters (she announced Wednesday that she had accepted the post), Mamdani has otherwise largely continued to make exceptions for Israel, one of his top issues as a state assemblyman. 

This week, for instance, he reiterated a vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his alleged war crimes if he steps foot in New York City, a move experts have questioned as legally dubious.

Mamdani’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the Queens Assembly contest represents one of his first efforts to influence a local race since his election. He had also reportedly offered support to Brad Lander, the outgoing city comptroller, in a challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a pro-Israel incumbent. And he has publicly discouraged Chi Ossé, a far-left city councilman, from mounting a bid to unseat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), saying in an interview Wednesday that “right now is not the time” as he seeks to manage his relationships with top Democrats to advance his affordability agenda.

In the Queens race, Mamdani’s recent engagement has faced skepticism from pro-Israel activists.

“If DSA/Zohran Mamdani want to be the muscle behind the most anti-Israel candidate they can find to represent a majority Latino district with actual problems in Queens, that’s their prerogative,” Sara Forman, who leads New York Solidarity Network, a local pro-Israel group, wrote in a social media post this week. “Choosing to fixate on Israel instead of schools, Trump or ICE is certainly a choice.”

But Mamdani’s push to influence the primary has also raised a possible conflict with the left, as he places himself in opposition to outgoing Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, a DSA member running for state Senate who had already endorsed her chief of staff for the seat, which is based in Jackson Heights. Brian Romero, the aide, has vowed to continue with his bid in spite of the split endorsements, setting up an internecine fight that could test Mamdani’s sway as mayor.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment from JI on Wednesday.

For her part, Kawas, who filed to run on Tuesday, is relatively new to the district, local campaign finance records show, and only recently moved back to New York City after studying in South Africa. 

Still, a political advisor to Kawas reportedly argued at a recent DSA meeting that her background is best suited for the race as the far left seeks to ramp up its opposition to Israel with Mamdani set to take office.

“We have to actually run a Palestinian Arab in this race because we need to draw the fire of the Israeli lobby, and we have to beat them,” the advisor, Joe Stanton, told attendees at the meeting, according to The Daily News.

In her DSA questionnaire, Kawas echoed that sentiment. “As a Palestinian, it is clear that the majority understands what is happening to our people, and with the groundswell of support and resistance to genocide, we’ve made some headway on particular boycott and divestment campaigns,” she wrote. “But while the tide is turning in some respects (especially with Zohran’s election), the pro-Israel lobby is still dominant.”

“It is urgent that we continue to grow connections across the Palestine movement and the broader left on this terrain,” Kawas wrote, “and this office is the place where I can do that.”

New York City’s leading Jewish security organization has prepared a new set of strategies to respond to policies that the city’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani might put into place that would affect public safety. 

Among the primary concerns of Mitch Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative and former director of NYPD intelligence analysis, is Mamdani’s vow to cut the police department’s Strategic Response Group. 

“SRG is what essentially stands in between ‘Free Palestine’ protesters and the Jewish community,” Silber told Jewish Insider on Thursday. Disbanding SRG “will diminish public security and security for the Jewish community,” said Silber. Mamdani pledged he would disband the force as mayor in December 2024, saying it had “cost taxpayers millions in lawsuit settlements and brutalized countless New Yorkers exercising their first amendment rights.” 

SRG was created after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks so that New York City could be prepared in the event of similar multi-site attacks. “There’s no way CSI could replicate that,” Silber said. 

But there are some elements of what SRG does that Silber said CSI, which is a partnership between the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York that relies on funds from private donors, “might be able to step up and, to some degree, fill a gap.” 

Immediately after Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June, CSI formed “Task Force Z,” a group of senior regional security directors charged with understanding what policies Mamdani, as mayor, might put into place that would affect public safety and Jewish security in the city, and began to prepare strategies to deal with challenges.

One of SRG’s primary missions is protest management, such as responding to the anti-Israel encampment on Columbia University’s campus last year. “Having volunteers be trained as how to be a buffer in a protest is something that we’re looking at if need be,” Silber told JI. 

Asked how likely Mamdani is to be able to fulfill his pledge of disbanding SRG, Silber said, “The mayor in New York City calls the shots and the police commissioner either gets on board or gets a new job. If Mamdani wants to get rid of SRG, he’s going to get rid of SRG because he’s going to hire a police commissioner who will do it.” 

Another threat to the Jewish community’s safety, said Silber, is Mamdani’s desire to reduce NYPD overtime pay. 

“The Jewish community is one of the primary beneficiaries of NYPD’s overtime — when NYPD responds because it’s the High Holidays, or there’s an event overseas, they have to use overtime to do it. So if the police department cuts overtime that will cut the Jewish community’s security,” Silber said. 

Already, the NYPD has just below 35,000 employees. “The last time the NYPD was 35,000 was 1994 when there were a million less people in the city,” Silber said. “We’re at an extremely low number and Mamdani isn’t going to increase the number of police.”

To help fill the gap, CSI’s new plans involve increased partnerships with other Jewish volunteer security groups. 

“Who can we partner with on the ground who is capable, has resources and is proven the community can trust? Some of that is volunteer community security patrols called Shomrim and Shmira that are very connected to their respective communities in Crown Heights, Borough Park, Flatbush, Queens and Far Rockaway,” Silber told JI. “We’ve worked with them in the past and found them to be very capable. They are already doing some of the job that the NYPD would do but because the department is so resource short, when there’s a funeral or wedding in the neighborhood, NYPD calls these groups and asks them to use their own patrol cars. So it’s already happening and we anticipate, as the number of cops in a given precinct continues to fall, Shomrim and Shmira can really amplify our security efforts. These groups need resources, more vehicles, vests and radios if they are going to be a deterrent.” 

“We’re finding out what these groups need and then will have conversations with donors,” continued Silber.

In Manhattan and Bronx neighborhoods, CSI is turning to its partnership with the Community Security Service, which has a network of more than 2,000 volunteers across New York City. 

Richard Priem, CEO of CSS, told JI that the group has “contingency plans to address different scenarios including gaps in coverage or surges in requests for CSS support — whether from synagogues seeking training for their members to join our volunteer network, Jewish organizations requesting CSS volunteers to protect their events or parents serving as eyes and ears at their children’s day schools.”

“There will also be a fund for private security like we did after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks [in Israel],” Silber said. “UJA will give us a fund for when a school or institution is having an event and doesn’t have enough security.”  

CSI is also coordinating with Jewish security leadership groups in cities including Johannesburg, South Africa, Mexico City and Toronto “to try to understand how to protect the Jewish community when police don’t respond in a way that you expect them to,” said Silber. 

“That informs some of our efforts as well,” he said. “They’ve invested very robustly in control rooms and camera systems so that they have situational awareness of what’s going on. That’s something we’re taking a closer look at.”

But the magnitude of New York City’s population —  with about 1 million Jews — poses additional challenges. “Nevertheless, we may look more closely at incorporating cameras into security,” Silber said. 

As NYPD officers are increasingly expressing interest in leaving the department, according to Silber, he said CSI is fielding inquiries “looking for landing when Mamdani comes in.” 

The group is “looking into trying to figure out who might best fit in our team.”