The Blogs: A Letter to the Mayor of NYC | Stephanie Z. Bonder

To the Mayor of NY,

I am writing to you as a teacher who has spent most of my life educating children. A lesson I have always tried to convey to my students is that leadership comes with responsibility.

Merriam-Webster defines a mayor as “an official elected or appointed to act as chief executive or nominal head of a city, town, or borough.” While this is a simple definition, it captures the essence of the office: a mayor’s responsibility is to lead and serve the people of the city. That is your job.

During your campaign, you stated that you would arrest the democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel if he came to New York to fulfill the warrant of the International Criminal Court (ICC). As you later acknowledged, you do not possess the legal authority to do so. The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court. Any warrant of the ICC is not enforceable in the United States, certainly not by a mayor. This was never within the scope of your office.

You have also made repeated public statements calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a war criminal and condemning the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces. While you can disagree with decisions and actions of the Israeli government, your comments do not acknowledge the events that precipitated it: Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which 1,200 people were murdered, tortured, raped, and 251 were taken hostage. There was a ceasefire in place between Hamas and Israel on October 6, yet Hamas chose to invade Israel and rampantly pillage the country through murder, rape, torture and kidnapping. Any discussion of the current conflict that omits those events ignores the reality.

As Mayor of New York City, you have repeatedly said that you represent all New Yorkers. Yet significant numbers of Jewish New Yorkers feel increasingly isolated by your rhetoric and by what they perceive as an inconsistent response to antisemitic incidents.

On the eve of Tisha B’Av, you wished Jewish New Yorkers a “peaceful Tisha B’Av” and wrote that it is a time to “pause and reflect on the history and resiliency of the Jewish people.” It is interesting that you acknowledge Jewish resilience, but I don’t believe you understand what Tisha B’Av commemorates.

Tisha B’Av marks the destruction of both the First (586 BCE) and Second Temples (70 CE) in Jerusalem, in the Land of Israel, known as Judaea. This date in the Jewish calendar marks numerous tragedies throughout Jewish history, including the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE), the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the expulsion of Jews from England (1290), the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492), and the beginning of the mass deportations of Jews to extermination camps from the Warsaw Ghetto (1942).

These events have built the Jewish identity and the strengthened the connection of the Jews to the Land of Israel. They prove the Biblical and historical relationship of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and to Jerusalem. Educated Jews and educated individuals who know those connections and lean into the facts of the region, reject the characterization that Jews are colonizers in their ancestral homeland.

This week, a Jewish man leaving his synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side while wearing a kippah was stabbed by an assailant who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” This was obviously a hate crime. Call it that.

Why would anyone feel able to attack a Jew in broad daylight? Simply because you, the mayor, indicate that you feel the same way. Every time you criminalize Israel for defending herself, and every time you claim that Israel is committing acts of genocide, you give permission to your constituents to attack Jews. Incidents like this, leave many Jews fearful about openly expressing their identity.

Words from public officials matter. They help shape the public conversation. You are obligated to use your platform to condemn antisemitism with the same clarity and consistency that you condemn other forms of hatred. Jewish New Yorkers deserve to know that their mayor is equally committed to their safety and well-being and not simply talking without acting.

Your primary responsibility is to govern New York City—to improve its neighborhoods, protect its residents, and serve every community fairly and without prejudice.

As the elected mayor of New York City, you are required to devote your leadership to those responsibilities and demonstrate through both your words and your actions that all New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers, feel safe in this city. Stop fanning the flames of hate! Learn your lesson and do your job!

Stephanie Z. Bonder is a proud Jew and lifelong Zionist. Stephanie studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for her junior year abroad and has recently completed her Master of Arts in Jewish Education at the Hebrew University Seymour Fox School of Education. In her volunteer hours, she is a national lay leader in Hadassah, the Jewish Federation of Greater Metrowest, and her synagogue. Stephanie teaches teens and adults on Jewish Peoplehood, Zionism and current events in Israel. Stephanie was named to Hadassah’s 2025 list of “18 American Zionist Women You Should Know.” All her blogs are her own personal opinions and do not represent the organizations with which she is affiliated.