The Anti-Defamation League says one in five people picked for mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team has “made or shared anti-Zionist or anti-Israel statements,” and the group wants every one of those appointments re-examined. In a report released Monday, the ADL lists posts, rallies, and group ties it views as hostile to Jewish New Yorkers, from campus protests to social-media banners that praise “resistance.” The flare-up comes only days after Mamdani dropped his own appointments director, Cat Almonte Da Costa, over teenage tweets about Jews, proof, the ADL says, that the incoming mayor can act quickly when antisemitism is flagged.
Mamdani, who will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, has long backed the Palestinian-led call to divest city pensions from companies that profit from Israeli settlements, a stance he calls human-rights advocacy and critics label anti-Israel. The ADL report argues the new transition roster goes beyond policy disagreement, citing appointees linked to Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Within Our Lifetime—groups the league says traffic in demonizing Zionists and glorifying Hamas violence. Names singled out include a youth-education adviser who posted a cartoon of Israel as a rabid dog, a housing committee member whose group cheers “resistance,” and a small-business pick who dismissed video of the Oct. 7 attacks as “propaganda.”
The mayor-elect’s office did not answer Newsmax’s request for comment, but allies note that transition teams are temporary advisory bodies, not paid staff, and that Mamdani removed Da Costa within hours of the ADL’s first alert. Supporters also say Palestinian rights advocacy is not automatically antisemitic, and that the ADL conflates criticism of Israeli policy with hatred of Jews. Still, the speed of Da Costa’s exit has raised the bar: if one set of old posts merits dismissal, the league asks, why keep advisers whose records, in its view, are worse?
Jewish community leaders split along familiar lines. Some want every flagged name dropped before inauguration day, warning that even unpaid posts signal the tone of an administration. Others fear a purge that equates every pro-Palestinian view with bigotry, narrowing the range of voices allowed to shape city policy. The ADL insists it is not asking for ideological screening, only for consistency: “When clear antisemitic statements are identified, the same standard should apply across the board.”
Mamdani now faces a tightrope walk between the progressive base that elected him and a Jewish establishment watching for signs of tolerance toward anti-Jewish rhetoric. He can drop more appointees and risk angering allies who see the ADL list as a political hit, or stand pat and spend his first months answering charges of double standards. Either way, the report has already moved the conversation from housing, transit, and budgets to the rawest nerves of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ensuring his swearing-in will be accompanied by protests, counter-protests, and a city listening for what the new mayor means when he says “safety for all.”
