Freshly sworn in Council Speaker Julie Menin on Wednesday said she’ll push to restrict protests outside synagogues and other houses of worship — as one of her first official acts of office.
It comes after growing worries from the Jewish community with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s day one move revoking or rescinding city policies aimed at combating antisemitism.
Menin — who will serve as the first Jewish speaker of the legislative body — said she expressed to the mayor that there was “concern” among New York Jews over his decision to repeal or rework the executive orders issued by his predecessor Mayor Eric Adams.
“I spoke directly to the mayor about that — those executive orders, because when the original executive orders were rescinded, there obviously was concern within the Jewish community,” she said during her first official press conference as speaker.
The two orders nixed by Mamdani– alongside a host of other Adams-era directives– included one to amend the definition of antisemitism and another that banned city employees from protesting the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement towards Israel.
Mamdani later re-issued an executive order to maintain the Mayor’s Office of Antisemitism — which directed the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, to look into creating safe perimeters around houses of worship cordoning off demonstrators.
But Menin contended that wasn’t enough.
“I indicated to him that I’m very supportive of that, we want to codify that, so we want to codify a safe perimeter — we’ve been working on the legislation for many months, actually,” Menin revealed.
The Manhattan Democrat said she also wants to see the safety perimeters around schools.
“You always want to codify these important policies so it’s never dependent on who the speaker is or who the mayor is,” she said.
