New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s flagship plan to combat antisemitism is sparking controversy: alongside tens of millions of dollars allocated to fight hate crimes, part of the budget will flow to an anti-Israel organization.
3+The plan, released last week under the title “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” includes an additional $6.4 million for a city initiative to fight hate—effectively doubling the program’s budget from last year.
The initiative has operated since 2021 under the city’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, partnering with six major grassroots organizations. Partners include the Jewish Community Relations Council, alongside groups representing other religious and ethnic communities.
3+But one of the prominent partners in the program is the Arab American Association of New York—an organization long identified with anti-Israel activism.
The group has repeatedly supported protests against Israel, and in the days after the October 7 massacre declared that “we stand in solidarity with the right of all occupied peoples to resist their oppressors.”
3+Criticism of the plan doesn’t stop at which organizations will receive funding. The 33-page document doesn’t mention the word “Zionism” at all, while Israel appears only in limited fashion.
More than two dozen Jewish leaders have criticized the plan and called on the Mamdani administration to release a revised version that addresses Zionism and its place in the discourse around antisemitism.
3+The uproar comes amid rising hate crimes against Jews in the city. According to NYPD data, through August there was an 8% increase in antisemitic incidents, with hate crimes against Jews making up an especially large share of all reports.