Mamdani Says He Will Keep Office to Combat Anti-Semitism

In the waning days of his administration, Eric Adams issued a 72 page annual report from the Mayor’s Office to combat anti-Semitism which was created in May, 2025 via executive order.

On January 1, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was eliminating all executive orders signed by Eric Adams after Sept. 26, 2024 but said at a press conference later that day that that he intended to keep the Office to Combat anti-Semitism.

Among the other executive orders that are being eliminated was an October order creating a cryptocurrency-focused Office of Digital Assets and Blockchain, and the rat hating mayor’s Office of Rodent Mitigation.

But the order signed by Adams on May 13 in which he and appointed Moshe Davis as its executive director appears to have been recreated by a new executive order signed by Mamdani, making it the exception to the nine executive orders that were expunged.

Mamdani explained that his second executive order singed hours after his public inauguration on Jan. 1 included a decree covering the infrastructure of city government.

“We wrote about the structure of city government and that includes the continuation of the Office to Combat anti-semitism,” said Mamdani responding to a question at a post inauguration press conferene. “That is an issue we take very seriously and part of the promise we made to Jewish New Yorkers.”

Adams had also signed three other executive orders that pertained to Israel or protecting Jewish citizens but they appear to have fallen victim to the Mamdani cuts.

Adams adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred via executive order No. 52. issued on June 8.

He also signed executive order No. 60, on Dec. 8, which barred city entities and personnel from boycotting or divesting from Israel. It was seen as blocking some divestment motions being pushed by several unions at the City Council.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani said in an interview with Marcia Kramer on CBS2 that he supported the then-comptroller Brad Lander who did not renew the investment by city pension funds in state of Israel bonds which amounted to some $30 million.

“I think we should not have a fund that is invested in violation of international law,” Mamdani said on “The Point with Marcia Kramer.”

“I think that the current comptroller’s approach [Brad Lander] — as he has taken it with Israel bonds — is the right approach,” he added.

While the bonds tied to the Israeli government were not renewed, but the city still has over $300 million invested in other funds connected to Israel that remained intact.

Adams’s executive order No. 61, directed the NYPD to look into creating zones around houses of worship in which protesting would be prohibited. That followed an ant-Israel protest outside the Park East Synagogue during Sabbath services in late November that drew anti-Israel protestors some of who the protestors were reportedly chanting “Globalize the Intifada” as worshipers entered the synagogue.

Days after the incident, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch who is staying in that role under Mamdani, personally appeared at the UES synagogue to apologize for the police department letting the demonstration get out of hand. Her retention as top cop was seen as a strategic alliance by Mamdani to keep a leading Jewish official within his young administration.

While the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism appears to have escaped the axing that killed other executive orders, it is not clear where Moshe Davis, the man Adams appointed to the post, will fare under the new administration.

His Linkedin and X accounts still list him as the executive director. But in his year end annual report, he outlined support for all the executive orders signed by Adams pertaining to Israel and anti-semitism that have apparently been axed by Mamdani’s repeal order. He did not respond to an email from Straus News seeking comment.

While the decisions surrounding the Jewish executive orders did not receive much play in most media outlets covering Mamdani’s inauguration, it was a big issue in Jewish publications.

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was quoted in the Jewish Times stating the “decision to revoke New York City’s adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, along with related executive orders aimed at confronting antisemitic discrimination, is a troubling indicator of the direction in which he is leading the city, just one day at the helm.”