A Jewish civil rights group is urging the Justice Division to analyze Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his administration for alleged “discriminatory failure to guard Jewish residents from antisemitic hate” crimes.
The bombshell accusations from the Nationwide Jewish Advocacy Middle come two days after the Poetica Espresso store in Brooklyn advised pro-Israel Jewish Rep. Dan Goldman by no means to enter the eatery once more, claiming it doesn’t serve “genocdial enablers.”
“The Nationwide Jewish Advocacy Middle writes to request that the Civil Rights Division open an investigation, beneath its pattern-or-practice authority … into whether or not the Metropolis of New York and the New York Metropolis Police Division are denying Jewish New Yorkers the equal safety of the legal guidelines by failing to guard them towards a documented and extreme wave of antisemitic violence,” stated the letter signed by NJAC CEO Mark Goldfeder and different workers legal professionals.
NJAC cites NYPD information displaying Jewish New Yorkers had been the victims of 330 reported hate crimes in 2025 — or 57% of the full – whereas Jews account for only one of each 10 New York residents.
“That’s greater than six per week. This referral asks the Division to reply why the Metropolis’s response to that file runs in the other way from the info,” Goldfeder stated within the letter dated Tuesday to Patrick McCarthy, performing chief of the Justice Division’s Particular Litigation Part Civil Rights Division.
The referral claims the mayor’s personal choices and phrases have contributed to discrimination towards Jews.
“Whether or not the Metropolis adopts or revokes a definition of antisemitism for its businesses, the way it buildings and funds the workplace charged with combating hate, and whether or not a Council invoice defending Jewish schoolchildren turns into legislation or is vetoed, are govt coverage selections the Constitution assigns to the Mayor,” the letter to the Justice Division stated.
Mamdani, upon taking workplace in January, rescinded govt orders permitted by previous Mayor Eric Adams to fight antisemitism. He additionally vetoed laws to set “buffer zones” round faculties to require a minimal distance between protesters and college students, claming it impinges on free speech.
“The Mayor revoked the Metropolis’s adoption of the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, along with the Metropolis’s order barring discrimination towards Israeli entities,” Goldfeder stated. “His administration has since confirmed, via the pinnacle of its personal antisemitism workplace, that it’s going to use no codified definition of antisemitism, or of another type of hate.”
He pointed to an April 2026 Metropolis Council listening to, the Police Division’s deputy commissioner for authorized issues testified that the phrases “Kill the Zionists” painted on a kosher restaurant may not be charged as a hate crime, and would depend upon proof that the motivation was not purely political, whereas “Kill the Jews” on the identical restaurant plainly could be.
“As a member of the Council noticed, `Zionist now operates as a proxy for Jew’, and “the town’s posture fingers the perpetrator an exit,” the letter stated.
“A authorities that declines to acknowledge the commonest kind the hatred now takes has declined, prematurely, to police it.”
Goldfeder additionally stated Mamdani directed the NYPD to develop a plan to disband its Strategic Response Group, the unit accountable for protest response and counterterrorism.
The referral stated the “mayor’s animus” was additionally mirrored within the actions of metropolis businesses, pointing to an hour-long coaching for Well being and Psychological Hygiene Division workers on Feb. 3, 2026 – a “International Oppression Workshop” about public well being in Gaza and the West Financial institution.
“The presentation consisted primarily of false accusations towards Jewish Israelis of `genocide’ and different crimes, and misrepresentations and distortions of Israeli historical past, society, and legislation,” the letter stated.
“The presentation didn’t point out Hamas atrocities towards Israelis on October 7, 2023, which included the homicide of over 1,200 largely civilian individuals, torture of kids, sexual violence, desecration of human stays, and the kidnapping and torture of over 450 individuals,”together with many American Jews,” Goldfeder stated.
“That is highly effective proof that New York’s Jews will not be a ‘precedence neighborhood,’ and Jewish municipal employees will not be thought-about ‘colleagues’ within the Mamdani administration,” NJAC’s referral stated.
Mamdani’s marketing campaign speech on June 18 referring to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as “monsters” the town is “up towards,” is the “starkest” instance of his hostility to Jews, based on the letter.
“Mamdani (and others) reserve distinctive contempt for AIPAC not as a result of it represents cash in politics, however as a result of it represents Jewish cash in politics,” Goldfeder stated.
NJAC requested the Justice Division open a “pattern-or-practice investigation” into the town and the NYPD’s response to antisemitic hate crime, together with the classification, investigation, prioritization, and resourcing of such crimes.
The Justice Division ought to press Mamdani and the NYPD to provide the complete enforcement “pipeline” for antisemitic hate crime experiences, together with the variety of incidents reported, in addition to further information together with the quantity that had been rejected, reclassified, closed with out arrest.
It additionally asks Justice to look at if the town complies with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which covers entities that obtain federal funding.
