State Democratic Party chief Jay Jacobs on Sunday said he opposes Mayor Zohran Mamdani repealing executive orders targeting antisemitism and supporting Israel — but added he still wants to be “fair-minded.”
“I disagree with it. It obviously didn’t send a reassuring message to the Jewish community,” Jacobs told The Post of Mamdani’s walk-back of orders issued under former Mayor Eric Adams.
But Jacobs said the executive orders were more “symbolic” and noted that Mamdani is keeping in place the city office designated to combat antisemitism.
“I want to be fair-minded. Let’s lower the temperature. I oppose the [repeals], but let’s give him time,” Jacobs said of the new mayor.
Adams had issued an executive order adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, as well as another that barred city officials from boycotting or divesting from Israel.
Mamdani supports the BDS campaign against the Jewish state.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement last week accusing Mamdani of stoking antisemitism with his actions, while mainstream Jewish groups, including the Jewish Community Relations Council and UJA Federation, condemned his repeal, too.
Jacobs, a moderate and ally of Gov. Kathy Hochul who also serves as the Nassau County Democratic leader, stirred controversy last fall when he refused to endorse Mamdani after the lefty democratic socialist won the city’s Democratic primary for mayor.
Hochul, by comparison, endorsed Mamdani.
At the time, Jacobs, who is Jewish, said Mamdani’s vocal criticism of Israel was an issue for him, along with other ideological disagreements.
“My mom left Nazi Germany in 1939,” the party leader told The Post in September, noting that many of his relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
“I also thought it was important to stand up for Israel,” he said.
But Sunday, Jacobs said Mamdani was duly elected by a majority of city voters and that he doesn’t believe the repeal of the executive orders is indicative of how the mayor will address antisemitism in the Big Apple.
“It raises concerns,” he said of scrapping the executive orders. “But I don’t think it’s mean-spirited. We have to give him a chance to establish his administration.”
Mamdani’s office, asked by The Post about the issue, referred to statements the new mayor made on Saturday defending his actions.
“On the first day as the mayor of New York City, you have to make the decision of which prior executive orders you will continue. You will amend, and you will revoke,” Mamdani said.
He said he decided to revoke executive orders Adams issued after Sept. 24, 2024, when Adams was indicted by the feds on corruption charges, which were later withdrawn by Trump’s Justice Department.
“It was a day at which many New Yorkers started to doubt, even more than they did, the motivations behind any executive order or executive action that was going to be taken,” Mamdani said of the turmoil at the time.
“And so I made that decision with regards to every executive order that was issued after that date, and that also included orders pertaining to Rikers, for example,” Mamdani said, referring to the city’s notorious jail.
“My administration will also be marked by a city government that will be relentless in its efforts to combat hate and division, and we will showcase that by fighting hate across the city, and that includes fighting the scourge of antisemitism by actually funding hate crime prevention, by celebrating our neighbors, and by practicing a politics of universality,” Hizzoner said.
Hochul’s office noted that the governor issued a proclamation adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism but stopped short of criticizing Mamdani.
“Thanks to Governor Hochul’s leadership, New York State has some of the most comprehensive laws on the books to protect against antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head,” a rep said. “The revocation of this executive Order does not in any way weaken those protections for Jewish New Yorkers.”
– Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya
