Click here to read this email as a page in your web browser

STAY INFORMED – TALKING POINTS – ACTIONS TO CONSIDER – VOICES – STORIES

Mamdani is Fixated on Israel while 
Jews are Hate Crime Targets in NYC

President Trump is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House – the same leader that NYC Mayor Mamdani has spent more than a year promising to have arrested if he comes to NY. Mamdani recently acknowledged that city attorneys concluded he had no legal authority to arrest Netanyahu when he is expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly in NY in September.

The mayor has focused on Netanyahu with speeches and statements condemning the Israeli leader while the city faces significant infrastructure problems, housing shortages and rising prices. Mamdani has trained his attention on one foreign country and one foreign leader, leaving many of the city’s roughly one million Jews to fear being targeted and victimized by increasing antisemitic acts, many violent.

Mamdani has no power over America’s foreign policy, but he does have every obligation to protect the safety of all New Yorkers.

‘A Mayor Playing President’

Mamdani recently released a video, viewed by millions, falsely branding Netanyahu a ‘war criminal’ and called for protests at the UN against the Israeli prime minister in September. The protest call drew anger from the Jewish community and other New Yorkers. The president of the NYPD Police Benevolent Assoc. called Mamdani’s promotion of protests at the UN a permission slip for “violent agitators” and that “the mayor’s heated rhetoric could push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.” U.S. Sen. John Fetterman mocked Mamdani as a “clown,” saying a mayor can “fix a pothole and take out the trash” but has no power to order arrests. NBA star Kyle Kuzma called Mamdani “a mayor playing president.”

The mayor’s fixation on the world’s only Jewish state extends to his administration’s attempts to meet with leaders of adversarial countries. Mamdani’s international affairs commissioner arranged a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to the UN – the representative of a regime in open conflict with the U.S. that kills it own citizens who oppose the government. Iran’s leaders have spent decades chanting “Death to America” and vowing to destroy Israel. The State Dept. intervened to prevent the meeting, calling it “unconscionable.” The federal government previously blocked Mamdani’s planned meeting with Colombia’s president – who posted “Heil Hitler” on social media.

The day after he posted his video, Mamdani’s official message marking Tisha B’Av – the Jewish day of mourning – mentioned neither Israel nor the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem the date commemorates. As the day’s fast was observed, an assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is the greatest” – stabbed two men, one of them a Jew leaving a synagogue after prayers and an Asian man. The attack underscored that violence against Jews does not end with Jews.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called the Netanyahu video “outrageous, slanderous and dangerous.” Its statement continued: “Mayor Mamdani has repeatedly demonstrated an obsessive hostility toward Israel that is wholly incompatible with his obligation to represent all New Yorkers. He has neither the authority nor the expertise to conduct foreign policy from City Hall. He must end this dangerous political theater and focus on governing a city confronting serious challenges, including the persistent threat of antisemitism.”

Even after the stabbing, Mamdani has refused to engage with calls to tone down his anti-Israel rhetoric. Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of NY, stated that “Mamdani is contributing to a climate in which Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly targeted and unsafe.”

‘Not An Activist Anymore’

Mamdani has a history of anti-Israel activity. He co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Maine’s Bowdoin College and is one of the most prominent Democratic Socialists of America politician in office. Mamdani refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and criticized Israel just a day after the horrific Oct. 7 massacres.

He has professed his “love” for five men convicted of sending $12 million to Hamas and repeatedly refused to condemn “Globalize the Intifada” – a call to attack Jews worldwide. Running for office, Mamdani promised Jews that they would be safe in the city under his administration.

On his first day in office, Mamdani revoked two executive orders – one directing city agencies to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and another that prevented boycott campaigns against Israel. Months later, Mamdani vetoed a bill requiring NYPD security perimeters around schools and declined to sign a companion bill protecting houses of worship.

The City Council overrode Mamdani’s objections with a veto-proof majority – in a year the ADL recorded 976 antisemitic incidents in NYC, the highest in four decades.

None of his actions are accidental. At its 2025 convention, the DSA made antizionism a condition of membership. National co-chair Megan Romer recently appeared on national TV, confirming the DSA platform that calls for abolishing the American two-party system and backing Palestinian “resistance” – even if it results in violence against Israelis and Jews. Romer is a member of the DSA’s Red Star, a “revolutionary Marxist-Leninist caucus” that published an article: “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.”

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Mamdani has pointed to falling crime numbers as evidence his approach is working. While it is true that NYC reported the lowest number of murders and shootings on record through May, a majority of the city’s hate crimes target Jews – even though they comprise 12% of the city’s population.

The Jewish stabbing victim, Moshe Grunhaus, was already preparing to move his family to Florida – one of a number of Jews leaving NY because of antisemitism. Martha Tabachnikova, who fled Soviet Ukraine as a child, stated: “I have no doubt in my mind that my children should be planning their lives elsewhere.”   

Some Jewish leaders are urging residents to stay. Orthodox Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz called leaving “an enormous mistake,” urging Jews to stand up for themselves and build non-Jewish alliances rather than quit the city. Jews have lived in NY since 1654. 

1. A mayor’s first duty is the safety of all residents

Mamdani claims his fight is with a foreign government, not with Jews – but he revoked the city’s antisemitism definition, vetoed NYPD security perimeters around schools and refused to sign protections for houses of worship. Every one of those decisions was made in NY, about New Yorkers. A blessing sent to the Jewish community on a day of commemoration and mourning does not cover for them. His own residents are his responsibility – and they are the ones paying for his obsession.

2. Repeating false accusations against Israel does not make them true

Mamdani’s video called Israel’s leader a ‘war criminal’ and Israel’s war a ‘genocide,’ citing Hamas casualty figures – while never mentioning the Oct. 7 massacre that started the war, the hostages dragged into Gaza or the Hamas terrorists still holding their own citizens hostage. Israel is fighting a war it did not choose against an enemy sworn to its destruction. Repeating lies to millions does not make them true – it makes attacks against Jews more likely.

3. Mayors do not conduct foreign policy

The Constitution assigns foreign affairs to the federal government – not city governments. That is why the Trump administration has twice stopped Mamdani and his staff from meeting with foreign leaders – recently calling a planned sit-down with Iran’s ambassador “unconscionable.” New Yorkers elected a mayor to run America’s largest city, not to open channels to the nation’s adversaries.

4. Singling out Israel is not a principle – it is an obsession

The only world leader Mamdani has moved to arrest is Israel’s. Every September, the UN General Assembly brings world leaders to NY who have starved their own populations, imprisoned political opponents and slaughtered civilians by the hundreds of thousands – none of whom he has targeted. He has not called for detaining the leaders of Sudan or Russia. Holding one country to a standard applied to no other is not principle – it is a double standard too often targeting Israel.  

• Demand your elected officials speak up: U.S. Sen. John Fetterman publicly rebuked the mayor’s conduct. Contact your council member, state legislator or Congressional representative and ask them to say plainly that a mayor’s job is protecting his residents – not campaigning against a foreign government.

• Push back when false claims spread: When someone you know repeats Mamdani’s claims – or anyone else who parrots Hamas talking points, answer with facts about how the war began and who hides behind civilians.

Prophetic Warning on Mamdani

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of NYC’s Park Avenue Synagogue spoke two weeks before New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani about the dangers he posed to the security of NY’s Jewish community:

“To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record, I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.

“Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like ‘globalize the intifada,’ his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s prime minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide – for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant, he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York City.

“This is an antizionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again – in Washington, in Colorado, in ways small and large, online and in person – has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence.

“This past summer, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of ‘death to the IDF.’ What exactly would a Mamdani administration do should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island or in Central Park?

“I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But today I’m throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late.

“What business does an American mayoral candidate have weighing in on foreign policy unless it scores points at the ballot box?

“I would love nothing more than our mayoral contest to be focused solely on affordability, education, policing, sanitation – the everyday issues that shape our great city’s life.”

Click here to watch Rabbi Cosgrove’s entire speech.

Stories of Resilience

• Pacific island of Nauru pledges Jerusalem embassy, 10th country to do so
• Israeli President Herzog: Israel-Bahrain ties a model for Jewish-Muslim coexistence
• Non-Jewish UCLA students travel to Israel to understand anti-Zionism they face on campus
• First Temple-period figurine mold uncovered in Jerusalem excavation

Stories Impacting American Jews

• Reed College adopts IHRA definition in landmark ADL-Brandeis civil rights settlement
• Harvard touts antizionist professor as ironic evidence of progress against antisemitism
• Memphis synagogue worker arrested for threatening to shoot congregants
• NYC Council allocates another $750,000 to Brooklyn district attorney’s hate crimes bureau

Stories Impacting the U.S. and Israel

• Trump says Saudi nuclear pact “totally subject” to Abraham Accords – condition absent when signed
• Syria’s Sharaa: working on security pact with Israel, could lead to comprehensive peace deal
• Republican Jewish Coalition creates Statesman Award honoring late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham
• Lebanon’s president tells Trump his country will end hostility with Israel “forever”
• Palestinian Authority calls terrorist murderers “a pride,” “heroic” and “a beacon”

Stories from Around the World

• France to charge six in foiled synagogue attack
• German man beaten nearly to death for wearing Israeli flag pin – police probe attempted murder
• Italy shuts down form to “map Zionist tourism” as Italy’s Jews warn of a widening threat
• Jewish Canadians were 70.7% of religious hate-crime victims in 2025 – despite being 1% of the population
• Jewish students say antisemitism normalized at UK universities
• British Jews feel abandoned by every major UK institution – police, schools, media

The Focus Project develops and distributes news, background, history and weekly talking points on timely issues to inform individuals and organizations about issues affecting the American Jewish community and Israel, and help readers speak with more consistency and clarity. The editions also provide potential responses for addressing incidents of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. With input from a spectrum of major American Jewish organizations, we focus on that which unites us, rising above political and individual agendas.



Recognizing that hatred of Jews comes in many forms and directions, we strive to address all sources as they arise, and educate our growing audience on topics ranging from inter-religious relations to relevant international developments. From week to week, we may focus on issues arising from the political left, university campuses, from the political right and from institutions, government, and corporations. We don’t try to address all issues in each edition. We hope you will find this information useful in your writing and/or speaking. We are always open to your feedback: info@focus-project.org.

Copyright © 2026 The Focus Project, All rights reserved.

www.focus-project.org