In response to the ADL expressing serious concern over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days in office, The Nexus Project President Jonathan Jacoby issued the following statement:
“The ADL issuing a statement of deep concern over Mayor Mamdani’s first 100 days in office reflects the core problem with the “Mamdani Monitor” and raises more questions about how ADL is approaching the new administration.
The ADL evaluation leans heavily on suspicion and fear — particularly when it comes to the Mayor’s Muslim appointees. It puts NYC’s first-ever Muslim mayor under a level of intense scrutiny and assumes bad faith that the ADL simply does not apply equally to other elected officials (including the President and Vice President of the United States).
This approach doesn’t help fight antisemitism. Instead, it exploits and misdirects our community’s legitimate fears and points them misguidedly at someone who is making concerted efforts to bridge divides and provide social services that keep Jews safe.
What goes largely unacknowledged in this “report” is the mayor’s clear record of engagement with the Jewish community and his administration’s stated commitment to combating antisemitism.
The standards the ADL is setting for Mamdani suggest a lack of neutrality and nuance. They undermine not just the Jewish community’s relationship to this one official, but the broader struggle to identify and combat genuine antisemitism in the fraught reality we are living through.
An administration indifferent to Jewish safety or Jewish perspectives would not reappoint a police commissioner whom the ADL itself views favorably, nor would it elevate a progressive Zionist Jewish civil rights leader to head the Office to Combat Antisemitism. Nevertheless, the ADL continues its performative disapproval and unreasonable critique of the Mamdani administration, thereby discouraging good-faith collaboration, alienating potential allies, and making it harder to build the coalitions that Jewish communities depend on.
Our communal organizations should be building durable partnerships with leaders who show a willingness to engage and join coalitions when a seat at the table is offered, not defaulting to adversarial relationships that hinder progress and undermine trust.”